Gloria McNeal
National University
Think Tank Speaker
Think Tank - 2022 July 12 Virtual Healthcare TT West
Dr Gloria J. McNeal, after serving six years as Dean of the School of Health and Human Services at National University (NU) has taken on a new role and responsibilities as Associate Vice President for Community Affairs in Health. In this new role she is responsible for providing vision and dynamic leadership for NU's community and global outreach strategies. Dr McNeal continues to look for opportunities to innovate healthcare. She is piloting a new strategy that uses virtual reality to teach nurses using the on-the-job experiences and complex social and patient interaction that occurs daily in health care settings. Her research work focuses on the use of telecommunication technologies in care delivered in the community, and her mobile nurse-led clinics have been well recognized as an innovative approach to improving access to care for at-risk urban communities. Developing the protocols of care, she led in the transitioning of critical care nursing practice beyond the traditional walls of the ICU, and was among the first to publish work on the remote transmission of ECG data.
Her academic career spans nearly 40 years in the field of higher education serving as a Program Director, Assistant Dean, Associate Dean and Founding Dean for nursing programs. She is a Fellow of the prestigious American Academy of Nursing (AAN), former Fellow of the AACN Academic Leadership Nursing Program, and former fellow of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Executive Nurse Fellows Program.
A prolific writer she has authored over 170 book and book chapters, articles, editorials and abstracts, and is Editor Emeritus for The ABNF Journal, the official publication of the Association of Black Nursing Faculty. She earned a BSN at the Villanova University College of Nursing, and a MSN at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Nursing. Her PhD in Higher Education Administration was awarded with meritorious distinction at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. She served as a Commissioned Navy Nurse Corps Officer earning two medals of commendation. At NU she established the Vets2BSN Project, a nurse-led clinic, and led the School in achieving the coveted Planetree Silver Recognition. She was named a 2018 Well-Being Champion awarded by AARP, a 2019 Planetree International Scholar, a 2020 Recipient of the AAN Edge Runners Model of Care Award, a 2021 Living Legend by the Association of Black Nursing Faculty, a featured speaker for the National Academy of Medicine podcast on the Future of Nursing 2020-2030 Episode 2: Health Equity, and a 2022 Pioneering Spirit Awardee by the American Assn of Critical Care Nurses.