Dean Lorna Finnegan named one of Chicago’s top health care leaders

Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing Dean Lorna Finnegan has been named one of Chicago’s Notable Leaders in Health Care by Crain’s Chicago Business, a recognition honoring the city’s most influential leaders in the industry.

“Dean Finnegan is an innovative educator whose commitment to health equity is making a deep, lasting impact at Loyola Nursing and across Chicago,” said Douglas W. Woods, Loyola University Chicago’s provost and chief academic officer. “Her strategies for promoting the success of students of all backgrounds put her at the forefront of nursing education, and we congratulate her on this well-deserved honor.”

Finnegan came to Loyola Nursing in 2019 and the school has since climbed in national rankings, recently receiving its highest-ever ranking of No. 26 from U.S. News & World Report. She has overseen significant growth of the school’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree program, which prepares students at the doctoral level to make systems-level impact within the healthcare industry. This fall, she was elected by peer leaders to the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), a leading national academic nursing organization.

Finnegan’s most important work at Loyola Nursing, she said, has been establishing a vision for the school to become a leading force in health equity. Creating a more diverse nursing workforce that mirrors the nation’s racial and ethnic makeup is central to that effort, she said.

“Having more nurses of color, with their understanding of the social determinants of health that impact their communities, is a tangible step toward reducing health disparities,” she said.

Under Finnegan’s leadership, the school received the AACN’s 2024 Inclusive Excellence, Belonging, and Sustainability in Nursing Education Award, with the organization calling Loyola Nursing a “model” for other nursing schools thanks to its “efforts to develop a diverse cadre of nurse leaders and sustain a culture of belonging.”

The school’s signature diversity program, the CARE (Collaboration, Access, Resources, and Equity) Pathway to the Bachelor of Science in Nursing, celebrated the graduation of its first cohort in 2024. The program, which provides academic, socio-emotional, and financial support to under-represented nursing undergraduates, has more than tripled in size since its launch in 2021.

Loyola Nursing has received back-to-back Higher Education Excellence in Diversity Awards for Health Professions Schools for its inclusive excellence programming.

A researcher who has received $8.8 million in extramural funding, Finnegan has significantly expanded the school’s research program, hiring five nurse scientists in two years and increasing the school’s research expenditures by 23 percent in four years.

Loyola Nursing now ranks 49th nationally and second statewide among nursing schools receiving National Institutes of Health funding. The ranking is a jump of 41 spots from the previous year.

Much of the school’s research focuses on improving access to and the quality of health care among underrepresented communities, from improving transgender health care to determining why the rate of preterm birth among Black women is higher than in other populations.

Read more stories from the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing.