In 1990, Carole Schoffstall returned to Colorado
from Georgia to become dean of a small, single-purpose
college with a well-respected baccalaureate program.
Under her leadership, the college grew so financially
sound that a for-profit technical college attempted
to take it over.
Believing that a profit motive was incompatible with
the mission and history of the institution, Schoffstall
instead successfully negotiated a merger with the
state university system, creating the University of
Colorado at Colorado Springs Beth-El College of Nursing
& Health Sciences.
That merger has had a positive effect on the community,
Schoffstall said.
"It allowed the university to become a more
comprehensive system, with nursing and health sciences
within it, and it enabled us to better serve the greater
community." She professes a continuing interest
in developing programs that can expand the scope of
nursing practice.
Under her leadership, the college has added a graduate
program that offers a variety of nurse practitioner
and clinical nurse specialty options, a health sciences
program and two certificate programs in forensic and
holistic nursing. All programs are nationally accredited.
Schoffstall also has worked to create strong community
ties and to secure support for a new building fund.
But Schoffstall believes her primary role as a dean,
and her greatest accomplishment, is creating an environment
where faculty and students can flourish in everything
they do. "Creating a positive environment where
other people can accomplish their goals is really
important to me."
Schoffstall has always been interested in teaching,
and it remains closest to her heart, although now
the only area in which she has time to teach is the
holistic nursing program.
"I'm a strong believer in the idea of a holistic
approach to how we view nursing practice and how we
view our patients. It is important to me to integrate
concern for the patient's spiritual as well as physiological
well-being. I try to convey this through my work,
community involvement, student interactions and faculty."
She is involved in starting distance-education programs.
"We have many rural communities in Colorado,
and we've started a number of outreach programs for
master's and BSN degrees. We take them to rural areas
of the state through technology, primarily."
Schoffstall finds it exciting to deliver programs
in such a way that students can stay in rural areas
and not be "lured" to the big city for an
education, where they often stay. She sees the outreach
programs as serving the state by keeping nurses in
areas of greater shortage.
Schoffstall is interested in promoting the health
of the community and serves on a number of task forces
looking at holistic health care and its delivery,
areas of uncompensated care and the needs in the community.
She is president of the statewide association of
deans of nursing, sits on the Colorado Council of
Nurse Educators and is active in a number of other
community and educational organizations.
"People out there are doing some pretty significant
things," she said.
