Two important MTSU programs — the School of Nursing and the June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students — have new interim leaders.

Dr. Karen Ward is now at the helm of the MTSU School of Nursing, replacing Dr. Lynn Parsons, who stepped down to return to full-time instruction.

Dr. Karen Ward

And Anne Fraley has been named interim director of MTSU’s June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students. Fraley replaces Terri Johnson, who resigned effective July 1 to become assistant dean for student multicultural affairs at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas.

Ward earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing in 1970 and her master’s degree in psychiatric mental health in 1972, both at Vanderbilt University, then taught at MTSU from 1974 to 1981. She earned a doctoral degree in developmental psychology at Cornell University in 1988 and rejoined MTSU’s nursing faculty in 1995.

“It gives me the opportunity to do the best I can for the students of the School of Nursing and to get faculty and students working together to produce the best nurses we can,” Ward said of her new post, effective July 1.

Anne Fraley

Ward said she hopes to see MTSU’s School of Nursing become more technologically savvy, adding that the process of having more clinical simulations in certain classes already has begun.

A native of Hartford, Conn., who has lived in Tennessee nearly 12 years, Fraley is entering academia from a career largely spent in parish ministry in the Episcopal Church. Most recently, she was vicar of The Church of the Epiphany in Lebanon, Tenn., becoming rector when the church obtained parish status and later accepting the post of priest-in-charge.

Fraley earned her bachelor’s degree from Earlham College in Richmond, Ind., in 1979 and her master’s degree in divinity from Yale University in 1994. She said she believes both her work with the Young Women’s Christian Association and her experience as a priest will help her serve MTSU students, faculty and staff.

“Churches face the same issues of how to meet the needs of people who go there voluntarily and with something in mind for themselves,” said Fraley.

Both women will serve in the posts through the 2011-12 academic year. A national search will be conducted to fill each directorship permanently.

— Gina K. Logue (gklogue@ mtsu.edu)