Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing Dean

Dear colleagues,

On behalf of Chancellor Gillman, we are pleased to announce the appointment of Mark Lazenby as dean of the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, effective January 1, 2022.

Since 2019, he has served as professor of nursing and associate dean for faculty and student affairs in the School of Nursing at the University of Connecticut. In this role, he provides strategic vision and direction for faculty, staff and students as well as administration for the School’s global and honors programs and its offices of enrollment management, advising, teaching and learning, and diversity, equity and inclusion. He also serves on the strategic planning and global affairs committees for the university.

Professor Lazenby earned an MSN from the Yale University School of Nursing, where he was on the faculty from 2010-19. Initially a philosophy scholar, having earned his Ph.D. at Boston University, he later became interested in nursing and has devoted his career to developing culturally sensitive palliative care interventions and to being a thought leader on the profession’s significance in contemporary times.

He was the principal investigator for a five-year research initiative funded by the American Cancer Society to develop palliative care intervention for Muslims. He has authored two books focused on nursing Caring Matters Most: The Ethical Significance of Nursing and Toward a Better World: The Social Significance of Nursing. Professor Lazenby is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing and the American Psychosocial Oncology Society.

We are thankful to the search committee and its chair, Bernadette Boden-Albala, Director and Founding Dean, Program in Public Health and Professor of Health, Society and Behavior, for their contributions to this nationwide search that selected Professor Lazenby from a field of outstanding candidates. We extend our deep appreciation to Adey Nyamathi, Founding Dean and Distinguished Professor, who so successfully launched the Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing and will continue to lead through the end of the calendar year. A celebration will take place in the fall to honor her many contributions to UCI.

We look forward to welcoming Professor Lazenby to the Anteater family.

Sincerely,

Steve A.N. Goldstein, M.A., M.D., Ph.D., FAAP
Vice Chancellor, Health Affairs
Distinguished Professor, Pediatrics, Physiology & Biophysics, and Pharmaceutical Sciences
Susan & Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences

Hal Stern, Ph.D.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Chancellor’s Professor, Department of Statistics