Tschirch Named School of Nursing Dean at UST
2/3/2012
 Dr. Poldi Tschirch, RN, BC, director of Nursing Program Development at the University of St. Thomas, was named dean of the School of Nursing on Jan. 26. Tschirch holds the Carol and Odis Peavy Endowed Chair in Nursing.
“Dr. Tschirch’s appointment as dean of the School of Nursing and holder of the Carol and Odis Peavy Endowed Chair of Nursing is a milestone for nursing education at the University of St. Thomas and the City of Houston,” said Dr. Dominic Aquila, vice president for Academic Affairs. “Dr. Tschirch has supplied unrivaled leadership, intelligence and creativity at every stage in restarting UST’s Nursing Program.”
The University hired Tschirch in 2009 to develop the Nursing Program curriculum in anticipation of reopening the School of Nursing, which closed in 1986. After 25 years, the nursing program has been reinstated and received accreditation from the Texas Board of Nursing and the Southern Association of Colleges.
The chair’s namesake, Carol Peavy, is a retired nurse and a St. Thomas Nursing School faculty member from 1980 to 1982, who spent much of her professional career in the medical field. The Peavys’ generous $2.5 million donation supports the restoration of a UST nursing curriculum designed to educate students with both an academic and spiritual foundation.
“We are so blessed to have Dr. Poldi Tschirch as the new dean of the School of Nursing,” Carol Peavy said. “Our healthcare needs are growing, and under her leadership St. Thomas will graduate nurses who will serve our community and continue the legacy of the nursing alumni from the 1980s.”
The School of Nursing has accepted 34 students for studies in the nursing major, leading to a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. These students are completing nursing pre-requisite courses this semester and will begin clinical nursing courses this summer. Another 34 students are taking pre-requisite courses to prepare for application to the nursing major in the future.
“I hope it becomes one of the premier nursing programs in the country – one that will graduate nurses who build on the historic tradition of caring in the Catholic Church and are prepared to shape the future of nursing,” Tschirch said.
Tschirch earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Salve Regina College in Newport, R.I. in 1974, a Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Texas School of Nursing in Galveston in 1983, and a doctorate from the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in 1992.
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