This year’s conference, with the theme, Honoring Our Past and Moving Forward: Decolonizing Nursing Knowledge, is timely and vital to our goal, as nurses, to protect and support the health of our nation and the world.

Registration, sponsorship, and scholarship applications are now open. Visit the conference website for details, and make your plan now to participate! Dr. Marie Gill, Director of the Dr. Margaret A. Newman Center for Nursing Theory at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, is leading the organizing team for the conference.

The conference “happens” over a 5-day span, and we hope that you will be able to tune in for many – perhaps even all – of the sessions. There are three “plenary” sessions (Thursday, Saturday, and Monday) that bring together panels for in-depth discussion of issues related to the conference theme.

• Opening Plenary – Decolonizing Nursing Education: Embracing Freire’s Pedagogy for an Inclusive Future
  • Lucinda Canty, Moderator. Panelists: Kechi Iheduru-Anderson and Roberta Waite
• Student and Early Career Scholars Panel – Using the Purnell Model for Cultural Competence as a Guide for Practice and Research“
  • Panelists: Suzy Walter, Heather Carter-Templeton, Emelia Botchway, Emmerita Morris, Robin Elkins – West Virginia University
• Closing Panel – The path forward for a Nursology that Heals, Transforms and Liberates
  • Christina Nyirati, Facilitator. Panelists: Daniel Suarex-Baqquero, Jitana Benton-Lee and others to be announced

30-minute Knowledge Podium sessions and Knowledge Posters will complete the schedule for the five days! Program details will be published by early February on the conference website!

The inspiration for the conference theme is based on Iheduru-Anderson and Waite’s paper published in 2024 –

Iheduru-Anderson, Kechi, & Waite, Roberta. (2024). Decolonizing nursing education: Reflecting on Paulo Freire’s pedagogy of the oppressed. Nursing Outlook, 72(4). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.outlook.2024.102183

The publishers of Nursing Outlook are giving access to the featured article at no cost for the months of February and March! So watch the conference website for details, and plan to download your copy of the article at no cost!