Dean and ProfessorDr. Janet D. Allan was appointed dean of the University of Maryland School of Nursing in June 2002. She previously served as dean and professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, School of Nursing.
In her national role, Dean Allan serves as treasurer of the Board of Directors for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), and is its representative on the multidisciplinary Healthy People Curriculum Task Force. She serves as the AACN Grassroots Liaison for Maryland. After the Institute of Medicine/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) released the Future of Nursing report in 2010 recommending advancing health through nursing, Dean Allan initiated and currently is a co-chair of Maryland’s Action Coalition, a large group of diverse stakeholders charged with developing a blueprint for implementing the recommendations in Maryland. She was a member of the AACN task force that developed the Essentials of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice and board liaison for the task force on The Research-Focused Doctoral Program in Excellence: Pathways to Excellence. Dean Allan served on Senator Benjamin Cardin’s Congressional Health Advisory Committee and was also a member of the Board of the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research. She is a past member of a RWJF advisory panel, where she served on a five-year project, “Prescription for Health.” Dean Allan was vice-chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force from 1998 to 2004 and served as the lead spokesperson on topics such as breast cancer screening, hormone replacement therapy, and adult obesity. She formerly served as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Nursing. Dean Allan has been president of the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF), which doubled its membership under her direction, and president of the Southern Nursing Research Society, which experienced similar growth under her leadership. Dean Allan was named to Maryland’s Top 100 Women Circle of Excellence in 2008. In 2002, she received NurseWeek magazine’s Nursing Excellence Award for service to the profession and also received the NONPF Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2001, she received the Southern Nursing Research Society Distinguished Researcher of the Year Award.
Since her arrival in Maryland, Dean Allan has led her peers and collaborated with health care providers to develop the Nurse Support Program II, a10-year grant program that provides nearly $10 million annually to fund educational initiatives aimed at alleviating the state’s shortage of nursing faculty and bedside nurses. She is a founding steering committee member of the multi-sector “Who Will Care” collaboration that joined academia, industry, professional organizations, and philanthropies together in developing the business case for addressing Maryland’s nurse shortage and establishing a $17 million dollar grant program to support nursing education. Dean Allan also serves as a member of the competitively selected state team representing Maryland at the National Nursing Education Capacity Summit sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, RWJF, the Center to Champion Nursing in America, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Dean Allan holds a PhD in medical anthropology from the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley; a MS from the University of California, San Francisco; and a BS from Skidmore College. Her research focuses on weight management of women across ethnic populations. Dean Allan conducted one of the first studies in the nation on the comparison of women from different ethnic groups’ practices, values, and beliefs about weight and how to manage it. She has also studied the problems of living with HIV and was instrumental in the creation of a hospice for HIV patients that serves as a national model. As a result, Dean Allan was one of nine nurses in the nation honored by the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health for contributions to the care of people with AIDS and HIV infection.
Dean Allan has published nearly 160 articles, book chapters, and abstracts. She is interviewed regularly by both print and electronic media on the nurse shortage, nursing faculty shortage, breast cancer screening, hormone replacement therapy, weight management in women/obesity, and her role as dean of the School of Nursing.
The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools, and is ranked 11th nationally. Enrolling more than 1,600 students in its baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral programs, the School develops leaders who shape the profession of nursing and impact the health care environment.