Dean Randolph Rasch

Randolph Rasch, Ph.D., FNP, RN

Recipient of 2015 Distinguished Alumni Award

Dr. Rasch was recently named dean of the College of Nursing at Michigan State University. He has more than twenty-five years of experience teaching in higher education. Prior to becoming dean at Michigan State, he was a visiting professor and interim chair in the Department of Nursing at North Carolina Central University-Durham and a professor and chair of the Department of Community Practice Nursing in the School of Nursing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His work at UNCG focused on leading faculty in community and mental health nursing as well as nursing care for the elderly. Before that, Dean Rasch served as director of family nurse practitioner programs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing and the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing.

“I am passionate about addressing the looming nursing shortage by inspiring student success and encouraging nurses to pursue graduate education. Nurses must practice as clinical scholars so they can identify the new knowledge that will improve models of care and patient outcomes. We cannot afford to limit who develops knowledge in nursing,” he said.

Dean Rasch’s research efforts have focused on areas of primary care and community health, specifically analyzing the roles, functions, and appropriate skill mix for all levels of the profession. He has published and presented in the areas of primary care, HIV risk reduction, and diversity in health care education and clinical practice.

He worked as a family nurse practitioner for more than 10 years and was the first statewide director of nursing services for the Tennessee Department of Correction in Nashville. In 1975 he became the first African-American male to serve as a public health nurse in the Berrien County Health Department in Michigan.

Dean Rasch received his doctoral degree from the UT Austin School of Nursing in 1988. He is a fellow in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and a distinguished scholar in the National Academies of Practice.