About Us
Leading advances in nursing science and service since 1917. Ranked in the top tier of U.S. nursing schools in both academics and grant funding.
Welcome to excellence — and to open doors
In advancement of knowledge, in service to health, in care for people, there is but one standard here: constant, uncompromising excellence.
Join a culture of nursing leadership that fosters personal, professional and scholarly growth in an exceptional learning environment within a world-class health science center.
This is a pivotal era for nursing — an exciting time filled with open doors.
- A nationwide nursing shortage means nurses are needed now more than ever — and the deficit won’t end soon.
- Health care reform has cast a bright spotlight on fundamentals — health promotion, illness prevention, wider access to basic care and more affordable costs — all of which describe the core mission of nurses since Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing.
- Wide commitment to elevating care quality, patient safety and evidence-based practice creates new opportunities for nurses to contribute to population health.
Come learn with us, work with us and become an alumnus of a top-tier College of Nursing pledged to making a measurable difference in people’s health.
Please consider this your open invitation to call or visit to learn more about how we can help you meet your learning and career goals in nursing.
Juliann G. Sebastian, PhD, RN, FAAN
Dean and Professor
| P.S. | You’ll learn all about the UNMC College of Nursing on these webpages. Here’s my preview: |
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The College of Nursing is the largest and most far-reaching of UNMC’s six health colleges, with: |
- the most students — over 1,000 at undergraduate and graduate level.
- the most programs — comprehensive offerings: bachelor’s, master’s, post-master's, doctoral, post-doctoral and continuing nursing education.
- the most campuses — five: serving Nebraska statewide, border to border.
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We rank in the top tier of U.S. nursing schools in: |
- academics — U.S. News, for example, has consistently listed us in the top 8% of graduate programs.
- grant funding — among the nation’s approximately 100 major schools of nursing, we routinely rank in the top quartile of funding by the National Institutes of Health.
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We have major presence and impact in all areas of Nebraska — and we influence the practice of nursing nationwide: |
- We’ve educated over half of Nebraska’s bachelor-degreed nurses.
- Our nurse-managed health centers, including our mobile nurse managed clinic, bring important basic health services to poor, underserved and at-risk populations throughout the state.
- Through our Morehead Center for Nursing Practice, faculty members engage in innovative nursing practice that fills urgent needs within the service area of each campus city.
- We collaborate in multiple ways — including forward-thinking partnerships with area health, education, business and civic partners — to alleviate the nursing shortage and bring more options for primary, frontline care to rural and small-town Nebraska.
- We aggressively develop and support ways to get more nurses into service faster — through accelerated nursing programs, through faculty training programs and through myriad forms of financial aid, including:
- Scholarships funding — in 2009/2010, for example, 226 nursing students received 308 scholarship awards totaling $427,534.
- Our distinguished faculty includes noted experts in their fields and nine Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) — a relatively small, highly select, highly accomplished group of national nurse leaders.
- Together, our leading faculty members influence and advance the science of nursing through their teaching, research, practice and publication in peer-reviewed journals.
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We’re a leader in advanced, student-centered learning technologies, including: |
- interactive, activity-driven transfer of knowledge, skills and competencies.
- advanced simulated learning, including computer-programmable patient manikins for lifelike educational experience.
- web-based, distance-learning options — a majority of our graduate students, for example, live outside Nebraska and access the bulk of their learning online, satisfying clinical requirements in their local community or one nearby.
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Despite a difficult economy, thanks to abundant donor vision and generosity, we’re solving the nursing shortage with a building boom unrivalled in the College’s nine-decade history. |
Nationwide, the nursing shortage sprang from insufficient capacity — cramped, outdated facilities, not enough teachers and more qualified students than slots to educate them. Our solutions for Nebraska mean a big boost in student capacity, including:
- a $14-million, 5-story Center for Nursing Science, adjoining our existing facility on the Omaha campus.
- opening a 5th division in Norfolk for nurse-starved northeast Nebraska in a $11.9-million collaborative nursing education center, the fruit of a national-model partnership among area residents, the region’s health system, its community college and UNMC.
- facilities upgrades at our Scottsbluff campus serving Western Nebraska and our Kearney campus serving Central Nebraska.
- NU Regents assigned highest priority to a new nursing building in Lincoln, replacing crowded rental space downtown. We expect that project to proceed when the economic outlook improves.
Meet the Nursing Dean: Dr. Juliann G. Sebastian
Juliann G. Sebastian, RN, PhD, FAAN, became dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing on Oct. 15, 2011, after a nationwide search.
“Dr. Sebastian is a nationally known nursing leader with important academic credentials and a compelling record of leadership,” said Harold M. Maurer, M.D., chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
Dr. Sebastian was formerly dean and professor of the University of Missouri-St. Louis College of Nursing, a post she held since 2006. Before that, she served as assistant dean for advanced practice nursing and professor at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing.
Her areas of expertise are organization of care delivery systems, care for underserved populations, academic nursing practice, nurse-managed health centers, and doctor of nursing practice program curricula.
Dr. Sebastian earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from the University of Kentucky College of Nursing and a doctorate in business administration from UK’s College of Business and Economics.
She is currently on the executive committee of the board of directors for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. She previously held other AACN leadership roles. She served as associate editor for leadership for the Journal of Professional Nursing from 2007 to 2009 and is currently a member of the editorial board (2010-12).
She has presented at numerous national and international conferences and has a prodigious record of publication — including numerous papers, book chapters, abstracts and three books related to community nursing.
In 1999, Dr. Sebastian was inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN). She served as vice president of Sigma Theta Tau International, the Honor Society of Nursing, from 1995-97 and as board chair of its foundation from 1997-2001. She was one of the first fellows selected (1998-2001) in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s prestigious Executive Nurse Fellowship program.
