Catherine Rice, Department of Nursing

Catherine Napoli Rice RN, Ed.D. is a tenured full professor at Western CT. State University in Danbury, CT.  Since joining the department in 1997 she has taught a variety of courses at the undergraduate level, graduate level, and serves as a thesis advisor.  By invitation, she has facilitated doctoral seminars in the department of educational leadership at the University of Bridgeport, in Bridgeport, CT.   She participates in numerous professional activities, scholarly writing, publications, papers, and invited panel participant.

The following is a sampling of recent professional activities.   As an invited researcher she coordinated a team of researchers to investigate faculty perceived professional needs related to satisfaction and retention at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.  In 2008, she co-authored a paper, ‘Supporting Faculty Needs in an Age of Transformation’, that was accepted for presentation and publication in the refereed Journal of College Teaching and Learning.  She was a panelist and presented papers at both the 51st and 52nd annual Comparative and International Education conferences held in Baltimore (2007) paper titled ‘Globalization and its Impact on Wealth and Poverty’ . Than at the 52nd conference (2008) paper titled ‘Globalization and the Great Divide’   Teachers College Columbia University with Dr. T. Thomas, Professor Emeriti and colleagues.

In 2008 Catherine was invited by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, FEMA to participate in the Eleventh Annual Emergency Management conference in Higher Education through the Emergency  Management Institute in Emmitsburg, MD.  In 2008 she was invited to collaborate with over 40 local and state health agencies (Managed Emergency Mass Allocation Consortium) to create a first in the nation ‘real time’ exercise to test triage and surge capacity during a simulated disease outbreak (Pan Influenza).  She developed a team of thirty undergraduate students, two graduate students, and one faculty which focused on all aspects of planning and delivering ‘real time’ patient care in response to a simulated healthcare emergency.  Her book chapter, ‘Tuning into Simulation through Physical Examination’ in Making Simulation REAL: Integrating Simulation into Nursing Education published in 2009 made it to the top of Springer Publishing best sellers list. 

Catherine is currently a member of several professional organizations, is a National League of Nursing Ambassador appointed for her 3rd term.  Is a member in of the Society of Educational Reconstruction she served on the planning committee for the 2004 annual conference and acted as a panel chair at the event.