"Grand Valley is a university on the move,"
Lewandowski said. "It's forward-thinking, innovative, has
ambitious leadership and a focus on diversity, equity and inclusion.
The more I learned about it, I thought, 'This sounds like a place
where I could lead and collaborate on great things, while creating a
future around the provost's and president's plans.'
"I have enjoyed the people I have met. It's
apparent the faculty, staff and administration are very caring and
united in the cause of being student-centered."
Lewandowski is a first-generation college student who
earned a bachelor's degree in nursing from the University of
Michigan. She then earned a master's degree in pediatric critical
care nursing from the University of California, San Francisco;
master's degree and doctorate in clinical psychology from University
of Massachusetts at Amherst; and completed a post-doctoral
fellowship in psychology at Yale University.
"I've always wanted to be a nurse. I'm a
caretaking type of person," Lewandowski said. "Next, I
wanted to be a teacher. Then I had an epiphany that I could do it
all: nurse, teacher and researcher."
An accomplished and widely published researcher,
Lewandowski's scholarship focuses on toxic stress, violence and
cumulative trauma associated with the social determinants of health.
She co-developed the Cumulative Trauma Scale, a 32-item scale
designed to assess and treat the psychological and physiological
symptoms caused by trauma. The scale has since been translated into
six languages for use worldwide.
KCON students, faculty and community members are
familiar with the
GVSU Simulation Center
, a 68,000-square-foot facility on the Health Campus.
Lewandowski praised the center and said she looks forward to
learning more about the interprofessional, state-of-the-art
facility, noting it will play a prominent role in student
recruitment and retention.
"I was impressed by the center's use of standard
patients and great facilities. The coming of artificial
intelligence and virtual reality combined with the center’s
equipment and personnel are game changers," she said. "We
know we need more nurses but our growth may be hampered by the
ability to get into clinical sites. This is not a replacement for
clinical education, but it certainly extends our ability to educate students."
Prior to joining the University of Toledo's faculty in
2017, Lewandowski served as associate dean for Academic Affairs and
graduate program director at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
College of Nursing; assistant dean of nursing at Wayne State
University with a joint appointment at Children’s Hospital of
Michigan as the Elizabeth Schotanus endowed associate professor of
pediatric nursing; and held academic posts at Johns Hopkins and Yale universities.
