Members of the University’s Health System Board convened Thursday at Boar’s Head Resort for their first meeting since the appointment of Carlos Brown as rector and Victoria Harker as vice rector. Four new members of the Board were present, including Brown, Harker, Rudene M. Haynes and John Harris, who was recently appointed as a public member. In open session, HSB heard updates on the School of Nursing and its response to nursing school faculty shortages.
The Health System Board is a subcommittee of the Board of Visitors that oversees the operations of the University Medical Center, the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing. It is comprised of seven voting Board members. In addition, five appointed members of the public and eight other University leaders serve on the Board in an advisory capacity but have no voting power.
The HSB heard a presentation from Marianne Baernholdt, Nursing School dean and a non-voting HSB member, on the School’s 10-year strategic plan. Baernholdt said the School’s staff began work on the plan in 2022 and she highlighted the School’s commitment to four key goals — transform educational offerings, enhance partnership programs, be a leading institution in nursing research and cultivate trust and equity. She also discussed the School’s progress in these goal areas.
The first goal includes transforming the educational offerings of the School by expanding programs like the two-year Accelerated Bachelors of Science in Nursing Transfer Program. The School has also expanded military nursing programs, offered paid research internship opportunities and ensured guaranteed assistance programs are readily available. Baernholdt said that the School currently provides some form of need-based financial aid to 65 percent of undergraduate and 68 percent of graduate nursing students.
The second goal of the 10-year strategic plan Baernholdt described includes fostering external partnerships similar to the one with the Westhaven CARES Center — a clinic located in the community of Westhaven. In partnership with U.Va. Health and the City of Charlottesville, a registered nurse is available at the Center to provide medical care for the community. Beernholdt said this creates a unique opportunity where nursing students can assist at the clinic and gain practical experience, and the School hopes to build similar partnerships in the future.
The third goal, according to Baernholdt, is for the School to be a leader in nursing science research. Baernholdt pointed to the fact that the School now has 22 tenure or tenure-track professors, 17 undergraduate researchers and has been awarded 83 research grants totaling over $14 million.
Baernholdt said the fourth goal is for the School to cultivate “trust and equity,” and she mentioned some of the School’s recent positive rankings to demonstrate this goal’s progress. She listed recognitions for the School’s Masters of Science in nursing program and Bachelors of Science in nursing program.
Reflecting on some of the challenges the School currently faces, Baernholdt cited a recent article by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing about the U.S. Department of Education’s recent proposed rule to exclude nursing from its list of professional degrees. The article expressed “deep concern” with this decision and argued that the decision would severely restrict student loan access by effectively capping the maximum student loans that nursing students would be eligible for.
Baernholdt also expanded upon a recent study in the National Library of Medicine that found the current nationwide shortage of nursing faculty has generated “substantial disruptions” to lectures, activities and clinical rotations. Baernholdt explained that this lack of faculty — as well as a lack of physical space in the school — leads to substantial decreases in the number of students that nursing schools can accept.
“I can’t talk about pressure points without mentioning the nursing faculty shortage and its impact on students,” Baernholdt said. “80,000 students in the nation who apply for … one of our 900 schools [in the U.S] are turned away because [in part, there is] not enough faculty and not enough [space] … we are thinking about … ways that we hope you can help solve [this issue].”
On the topic of faculty shortages, Board member Daniel M. Brody noted that, given the national shortages of nurses and nursing school faculty, the School can only accept around 75 to 80 new students per year. Brody asked how Baernholdt anticipated the HSB could begin addressing the issue.
Baernholdt responded that the number of accepted students is set by the Board of Visitors and the state, but that there is a tradeoff between allowing more students in and actual space available in the School’s facilities. She said that some of the School’s competitors make deals with the legislature to receive funding for a new building and in exchange they make a certain number of new seats available.
“That’s a model we could do here if we wanted,” Baernholdt said. “I think we have clinical capacity now … [we should consider] what [to] do in terms of clinical placement, [building] different sites and how [we can] make [our] system more efficient.”
Interim member Brie Gertler praised what she called Baernholdt’s creativity in adapting to the faculty shortages and lower acceptance rates associated with it. Among these strategies is Baernholdt’s efforts to save the contact information of “promising” rejected students to advise them on reapplying in the future.
“I want to congratulate [her] … [she] has been incredibly creative in [graduating more nurses which] all of us are working on,” Gertler said.
The HSB also received three separate reports from the Medical Center, the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing which included leadership role updates and news of recent research innovations and philanthropic initiatives. In closed-session, the HSB discussed business matters, recruitment strategy and finances to further the strategic initiatives of the schools. It also consulted with legal counsel regarding federal and state legal requirements and accreditation standards.
After a period of closed session, HSB voted to approve its financial report for the first half of the 2026 fiscal year. The report highlighted a “$95 million turnaround” for U.Va. Health, in which there was a 5.5 percent increase from expected financial revenue. Board Member and HSB chair David O. Okonkwo congratulated U.Va. Health for a “remarkable” performance in terms of revenue in the past six months.
The HSB will reconvene June 4-5 for the next meeting of the Board.
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