Meet the Director - Dr. Jenny Sauls
Welcome to the MTSU School of Nursing. My name is Dr. Jenny Sauls, professor and director of the School of Nursing. Our faculty and staff are dedicated to producing nurses who are prepared to meet the health care needs of our citizens and shape the future of a changing health care environment.
At any given time, there are about 300 nursing students in our pre-licensure undergraduate program leading to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (B.S.N.) degree.
Each year, we enroll approximately 130 new students in nursing courses and graduate approximately 110 students who are prepared as nurse generalists and are qualified to take the RN licensure exam. Most of our graduates begin their nursing careers in hospitals in the middle Tennessee area. Many go on to complete advanced degrees in nursing as nurse practitioners, nurse educators, and nurse anesthetists.
About 150 students are enrolled in our master's program, preparing to become Family
Nurse Practitioners or Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners. Graduates of
our M.S.N. program are providing primary care in the midstate and across the country.
MTSU's School of Nursing is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), and has full approval from the Tenessee State Board of Nursing.
Through robust academic programming, the School of Nursing demonstrates its commitment to the art and science of nursing.
We have an outstanding group of faculty, all of whom are educationally and experientially qualified to teach in their respective areas. We have 28 full-time faculty and six part-time faculty. All classroom faculty are doctorally prepared, and all clinical faculty are at least prepared at the master’s level.
To tell you a bit about myself, MTSU has been my second home since I attended band camp here during my junior high and high school marching band days. I fell in love with the campus then and knew I wanted to complete my Nursing degree here, which I did in 1981 as a graduate of the Associate Degree in Nursing program. While working as a staff nurse, primarily in critical care, I finished my B.S.N. degree in 1984 at Tennessee Technological University and my M.S.N. in Nursing Administration in 1988 at Vanderbilt. I completed my Ph.D. in Nursing Education in 2000 at University of Alabama at Birmingham while teaching at MTSU.
My tenure as an educator started at MTSU in 1990 as a clinical teaching associate. This was a grant-funded position supported in total by the Christy-Houston Foundation and included a joint appointment with Middle Tennessee Medical Center (now Ascension Saint Thomas Rutherford). I provided clinical instruction for MTSU students in critical care, leadership, medical/surgical nursing, and fundamentals. I also provided continuing education and staff development for the staff nurses at MTMC in critical care. In 1992, I was hired in a tenure-earning position, and the rest is history. I earned tenure in 1998 while completing my Ph.D. After 20-plus years of full-time teaching in various courses for the B.S.N. program, I became the director in 2013, and I am True Blue.
I encourage you to explore our website to find out more about our programs and to visit us when you are in the Middle Tennessee area.
