Cindy Schultz has been selected as the Director of the UFV School of Health Studies.
This role oversees nursing and dental programs at UFV, including the Bachelor of Science in Nursing, the Practical Nursing diploma, Health Care Assistant, Certified Dental Assistant.
Schultz is a UFV alumna (Nursing diploma, Nursing Management certificate, and BSN) and also has an MA in Leadership from TWU, and a certificate in Reproductive Health Screening (BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre). She is a certified practitioner in Sexually Transmitted Infection Management (BCIT). She began working as an RN in 1993, and has been a faculty member at UFV since 2007.
She earned her BSN through the UFV RN Access program that ran for several years, which gave diploma-level RNs the opportunity to ladder into a degree by taking third- and fourth-year programming at UFV.
Schultz has previously held the positions of BSN Year One Lead, and BSN Coordinator. She has experience in global health, having taken two groups of nursing students to Belize as part of the international nursing elective. Her recent teaching area has been gerontological nursing, reproductive health care, and community health. She is a member of the Options for Sexual Health organization in Abbotsford and Chilliwack, and initiated a partnership between the clinic and the Chilliwack Youth Health Centre.
Schultz began a five-year term as Director on Jan 1.
She says she is looking forward to the challenge of the new position.
“I have been in nursing management positions and have been involved in implementing change and quality improvement initiatives both there and in my leadership roles at UFV. I have accomplished what I wanted to at that level and am ready to try something different,” she notes. “I am excited to learn more about the broader functions of the university, and more about health education at the provincial level. There will be change coming across all of our programs that I will be working with our departments to implement.”
She noted that there is movement towards harmonizing services and programs across post-secondary institutions.
One of her goals is to maintain the high clinical standards for which UFV health sciences programs are known.
“We did very well in our last accreditation process for the BSN and were approved for the full seven years. We have done a very good job of maintaining high standards in our clinical practice. Our grads are in high demand.”
UFV works closely with Fraser Health for clinical education.
“We are very fortunate to have Fraser Health as a partner.”
Dean of Health Sciences Alastair Hodges is thrilled to see Schultz take on the lead role in the School of Health Studies.
“I very much look forward to working with Cindy in this critically important leadership role in our Faculty,” he noted. “Her knowledge of our Health Studies programs and her commitment to students, faculty, and staff at UFV and to the community will be a tremendous asset in this role.”