Undergraduate Admissions

Kathleen T. Patterson, RN, Ph.D., has been named the director of Gannon University’s Villa Maria School of Nursing.

The appointment was announced by Carolynn Masters, Ph.D., dean of the University’s Morosky College of Health Professions and Sciences.

Patterson comes to Gannon from the Venango Campus of Clarion University, where she served as director of the School of Nursing and Allied Health. She also previously served as an assistant professor of nursing and as a graduate program chair at Carlow University.

Patterson has been a nurse educator for 17 years and has a demonstrated track record of administrative and leadership experience in nursing practice. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing (BSN) from Villanova University and a master’s degree in nursing (MSN) in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing from the University of Pennsylvania.

In 2001, Patterson was awarded the doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) in nursing degree from the University of Pittsburgh. Her doctoral dissertation focused on predictors of violence in rural adolescents.

She has presented papers in Australia, Ireland and, most recently, was a member of a nursing leadership delegation to Cairo, Egypt. Patterson is also board certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center as a Clinical Nurse Specialist.

Gannon University’s Villa Maria School of Nursing has a demonstrated track record of success. Graduates of the school have a 100 percent career placement rate, and baccalaureate graduates continue to achieve greater than a 95 percent first-time pass rate on the NCLEX-RN (National Council Licensure Examination).