Welcome from the Dean

We are proud of our wonderful learning environment located within the beautiful Ocean State. With our two nursing campuses situated in the village of Kingston and Providence, the URI College of Nursing is a thriving community oriented toward promoting health, healthcare, and wellbeing for all. Perhaps as never before in our history, professional nurses are called upon to foster human and planetary health. Through an excellent and comprehensive education, URI nurses are playing an important role in this regard.

The URI College of Nursing Stands Out As Excellent! 

  1. Our curriculum is grounded in the science and art of nursing, and interprofessional education with other professions. For example, through an interprofessional education collaboration we established, our students bring forth their nursing perspective to learn alongside medical students from Brown University’s Warren P. Alpert School of Medicine.
  2. We meet the health and healthcare needs of individuals, families, communities, and populations not only locally and regionally, but, in fact, across the world. This includes an understanding of the impact of social determinants and the environment on health and lived experience. As one example, our nursing students are able to study with experts and other health-related professionals in different cultures in far-away places including Indonesia and the Dominican Republic. 
  3. URI nursing students provide theoretically-based care across the lifespan. Clinical rotations offer experiences with a diverse group of people in a variety of healthcare institutions and community settings. Our sites include, but are not limited to, Westerly, Miriam, Women & Infants, and Hasbro Children’s Hospitals, as well as schools, hospice settings, visiting nurse associations, home-care, nursing facilities, prisons, and adult day care. 
  4. We develop students who possess evidence-based knowledge, affective attitudes, empathy, communication techniques, leadership skills, resilience, self-care, and clinical competencies necessary for humanistic, ethical, compassionate, high-quality, safe, person-centered and population-based care. 
  5. Students engage in virtual reality and simulation learning experiences, benefiting immensely from our world-class state-of-the-art simulation center and learning laboratories located at the Rhode Island Nursing Education Center (RINEC) in Providence.
  6. We embody a proactive approach to student engagement, wellbeing, and success. Whether it be with an academic advisor, clinical placement coordinator, assistant dean, faculty, staff member, or administrator, you are not just a number to us. We see you and care about your professional education. We strive to meet you where you are and offer help, mentoring, and advice as you pursue your future goals.  
  7. Our research and scholarship shape the development, utilization, and translation of knowledge into practice. Students have the opportunity to work as undergraduate research fellows with scholars and nurse scientists, and pursue masters-level clinical speciality education and doctoral education in nursing through our Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) programs. 

URI nurses are in demand as they co-create the future of healthcare. With so many wonderful features, I invite you to experience the URI College of Nursing for yourself. We look forward to a visit from you or inquiries about our programs!  

Best regards,

Danny Willis
Dean and Professor