An Era of Achievement
The last five years have been a period of remarkable growth and achievement for the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing, culminating in the transformative gift that gave the school its new name.
Education
The school launched the Post BSN-DNP program, bringing UCLA Nursing in line with national standards endorsed by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The three-year program provides a pathway for post-baccalaureate nurses who desire the role of nurse practitioner with doctoral-level knowledge and skills. Students can choose from four specialties: Adult/Gerontology Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, Adult/Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner, Family Nurse Practitioner, and Pediatric Dual Primary/Acute Care Nurse Practitioner.
UCLA Nursing undertook a curricular review process, resulting in partial or full curriculum revisions across all pro-grams. This included an update of the BS, MECN, and Post BSN-DNP curricula to align with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nurs-ing Education, a landmark framework that shifted nursing education from a knowledge-based to a Competency-Based Education model. The school also finalized PhD curriculum revisions.
The school paved the way for simulation lab work for UCLA Nursing students in Rosenfeld Hall, a recently expanded facility that consolidates the latest technology under one roof to enhance continuous training for future health-care professionals. Rosenfeld Hall houses simulation training programs in partnerships with the UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing, the UCLA Health Center for Nursing Excellence, and the UCLA Center for Prehospital Care.
Research
The school sustained impressive growth in its research portfolio. In the three years from FY 2021-22 to FY 2024-25, grant dollars increased by more than 40%.
Faculty
The UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing recruited and hired more than a dozen faculty members, with a 12% overall in-crease in faculty from 2020 to the present.
Five UCLA Nursing faculty members have been inducted as American Academy of Nursing Fellows since 2021, adding to UCLA Nursing’s total of more than a dozen AAN Fellows. Since 2021, FAAN recipients have included Dr. Kristen R. Choi, associate professor and Audrienne H. Moseley Chair in Nursing; Dr. Sarah E. Choi, professor; Dr. K. David Bailey, assistant adjunct professor and chief nursing officer for UCLA-Santa Monica Medical Center; Dr. Karen Grimley, UCLA Nursing assistant dean and UCLA Health chief nursing executive; and Dr. Mary Rezk-Hanna, associate professor.
Practice Partnership
The school forged a strong and fruitful partnership with UCLA Health, design-ing a model that uses integration, collab-oration, and synergies to promote health equity, innovation, and excellence. The partnership is in line with a national push, spearheaded by the American Organization for Nursing Leadership and American Association of Colleges of Nursing. The organizations identified five domains as part of their shared vision for integrating nursing education and practice: striving toward health equity, moving to competency-based nursing education, sustaining the supply of highly educated nurses, leading in-novation to maximize nursing’s impact, and ensuring continuous advancement of nursing.
Global Collaboration
The school continued to increase its global footprint, with international collaborations stretching to Europe, Africa and Asia. The UCLA Joe C. Wen School of Nursing fosters internation-al partnerships to advance education, research, and evidence-based practice, featuring memoranda of under-standings (MOUs) with institutions in Armenia, Austria, Cameroon, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malawi, the Philippines, South Korea, Spain, and Turkey. Collaborations most recently finalized include the University of Tokyo (School of Medicine), Yonsei University School of Nursing (South Korea), and China Medical University (Nursing), with new MOUs currently in final negotiation with the University of Indonesia and the National University of Singapore (Alice Lee Centre for Nursing Studies/Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine).
Hosting Leaders
UCLA Nursing hosted U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough, as well as numerous international nursing leaders. Secretary McDonough met with UCLA Nursing students, veterans, faculty, and staff to discuss nursing opportunities at the VA and the challenges facing student veterans and nurses.
Development
In 2025-26, the school had the single highest fundraising year in its history. Under Dean Lin Zhan, gifts and pledges have totaled nearly one-third of the all-time philanthropy going to UCLA Nursing. The last year included the largest commitment made by an individual donor — the $30 million commitment from Joe C. Wen and his family that renamed the school — as well as the larg-est commitment ever made by a UCLA Nursing graduate, from Linda Gorman (MN ’77). The school has set a record for alumni giving during Zhan’s deanship, including the first endowed chair established by a UCLA Nursing alum.
