The UB School of Nursing has come to the end of an era with its dean, Mecca S. Cranley, announcing that she will be retiring at the end of the school year.
Cranley, who has been dean of the School of Nursing since 1991, plans to retire in January of 2008. Having served as dean for almost seventeen years, she has had the longest tenure of the school's twelve deans.
"I believe it's time for me to start a new life stage and for the school to have fresh leadership to continue its momentum," Cranley said.
As dean, Cranley established several new academic degrees and certificate programs, including a Ph.D. for the nursing program and Accelerated Baccalaureate program. She has also attained many funds for research.
Such dedication on her part has pushed the School from the 73rd to the 43rd best-funded nursing schools from the National Institutes of Health in just the past year.
"We can never forget that the reason we exist as a university is to provide the opportunities for the students to learn so that they might achieve their dreams," Cranley said. "My job as dean has been primarily to ensure that the faculty has all the resources necessary to enable that learning."
David L. Dunn, vice president for health services, was unavailable for comment, but plans to conduct a national search to find a successor for Cranley by the beginning of the next academic year.
"I would expect nothing less," Cranley said. "This is a major deanship in an academic health center. I would hope we would attract an outstanding new dean from the broadest pool possible."
Comments from her colleagues show that Cranley will be dearly missed. Most describe her as a calm and easygoing leader, with a cheerful and witty personality.
"She has been a wonderful Dean, a powerful role-model and an accomplished administrator," said Susan Lombardo, RN, PhD. and Clinical Associate Professor. "She is fair-minded and level headed and filling her shoes will be a difficult task."
Martha Kemsley, PhD., RN, director of undergraduate studies, has worked with Cranley since the beginning of her tenure and feels that her retirement is well deserved.
"Dean Cranley has contributed to the growth of the school of nursing and recognition of the school within the University as well as the local and national nursing community," Kemsley said.
Cranley said her experience as dean has been wonderful.
"I have learned something nearly everyday from students, faculty, fellow deans and provosts," she said. "It has also given me a platform from which to promote nursing as an intellectually challenging as well as a caring profession, one with so much opportunity for personal growth."
Even with her impending retirement, Cranley will still have very little time on her hands.
"I plan to read all, well at least some of the books I've never quite gotten around to, spend time with my fifteen grandchildren and travel some," she said.
Cranley has also been affiliated with several other associations at UB, such as the Graduate School of Education, the School of social work, the executive committee of the Association of Women Professors and the UB Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender.
Cranley is a member of the U.S. Pharmacopoeia Convention Inc.'s advisory panel of nursing practice, the Governor's Board of the Healthcare Trustees of NYS and the Western New York Commission on Health Care Reform.
She is also affiliated with the American Nurses Association, the NYS Nurses Association and the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
