Clarke International University Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Rose Clarke Nanyonga, was recently appointed as Associate Professor of Nursing Leadership, Management and Policy at the university making her the first female nurse to earn this title in the country.
Dr Nanyonga is a profound inspirational healthcare leader, educator, learner, researcher, nurse, mentor, policy influencer, and global health enthusiast, with more than 26 years of clinical nursing experience and health systems & administrative leadership.
The scholar formerly served as the Director of Nursing and Midwifery Services at International Hospital Kampala and later worked as the Director of Clinical Services for International Medical Group, Kampala, Uganda.
Notably, she was instrumental in helping Dr Ian Clarke establish the International Hospital School of Nursing in 2005, which subsequently formed the first faculty of CIU in 2008.
A woman of firsts, Dr Nanyonga was the first in her birth family to earn a college degree, graduating with a Bachelor of Science-Nursing from Arkansas Tech University, USA in 2002 with the highest distinction (Summa Cum Laude) in her class. She went on to earn a Master of Science in Nursing degree from Baylor University, USA in 2005 (Family Nurse Practitioner); a PhD in Nursing from Yale University, USA in 2015; and a Graduate Certificate of Concentration in Global Health from the Whitney and Betty McMillan Center for International Studies at Yale University, USA in 2015.
In addition to her busy schedule as VC, Dr Nanyonga is interested in research that explores issues related to Health Systems Strengthening, Management of Chronic Illnesses, Health care and Higher Education Leadership & Policy, and Nursing Workforce studies. Her PhD work examined Leadership, Followership, and the Context, an Integrative Examination of Nursing Leadership in Uganda.
She is a co-Principal Investigator in multiple research studies exploring hypertension care in Uganda, optimising nurse-led interventions for hypertension management, and is currently an institutional faculty mentor for the Health Professions Education and training for strengthening the health system and services in Uganda program (NIH Grant No. 1R25TW011213) in which CIU is a participating institution.
Her impressive CV highlights a wide range of platforms where her research has been disseminated through publications in peer review journals, conferences, webinars, and relevant presentations.
Dr Nanyonga is the founder of the Rose’s Journey Scholarship Fund which was established in 2009 to support and increase the number of nurses and midwives with baccalaureate degrees in Uganda. To date, this program has sponsored over 72 health professional students to complete their degrees.
In 2009, Dr Nanyonga pioneered a grassroots campaign to end child sacrifice and crimes associated with ritualistic child sacrifice in Uganda. She has remained an avid advocate for change in this area
She is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society for Nurses.
For the last 7 years, Dr Nanyonga has successfully led the CIU leadership and staff to transition the university from a disadvantaged state to a position where CIU is well-established as one of the leading private universities in Uganda.
In recent months, with the country besieged by the Covid-19 Pandemic, she and her team demonstrated leadership by collaboratively working with the National Council of Higher Education to foster continuity of learning through the Emergency Open Distance and E-Learning for health professional students at CIU.
She has done so while remaining passionate about issues that impact the nursing and midwifery profession and has remained a key leadership figure for the Nursing and Midwives Leaders Think Tank, an advocacy group established in 2020 to respond to issues impacting the fraternity during the Covid-19 pandemic.
