William Paterson University — home to the largest nursing enrollment on any college campus in New Jersey, with 2,078 current students — recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Doctor of Nursing Practice program, a key initiative in strengthening the state’s health care workforce and addressing rising demand for advanced clinical leadership.
The DNP is the highest-level clinical degree in nursing, designed for advanced practice nurses who already hold master’s degrees. It prepares graduates to lead innovation in care delivery, improve patient outcomes, and influence policy at the systems level.
Since its inception in 2014, the program has graduated 74 nurse leaders, many of whom now hold senior positions in hospitals and healthcare organizations across the region. To further expand access and meet workforce demand, William Paterson will transition the program to a fully online model in spring 2026.
Minerva Salinas Guttman, associate dean of William Paterson University’s School of Nursing, described the impact.
“One area that has not changed is the School of Nursing’s commitment to educating nurse thinkers,” she said. “The program continues to bring nursing research, through evidence-based practice, into the clinical setting where it seeks to improve health outcomes.”
The anniversary was marked with an on-campus celebration attended by dozens of DNP alumni, including keynote speaker Maria Brennan, DNP ’14, chief nursing officer at University Hospital in Newark and a member of the program’s first graduating class.
Brennan, who recently served as president of the Organization of Nurse Leaders of New Jersey, spoke on the degree’s transformative impact and the changes in the health care system today that point to the ongoing need for clinical nurse scholars and leaders.
“Once you’ve earned the DNP, you see things differently,” Brennan said during her address. “You see how policy, staffing, data and culture all intersect at the patient’s bedside … You notice whose voices are missing, and you invite them in. You stop reacting, and you start shaping.”
Brennan previously provided health care consulting services to New Jersey and New York hospital systems. She is the former vice president of patient care services and chief nursing officer for Lourdes Health System in Camden, where she led the transformation of the health system into a high reliability organization. Brennan was a presenter at the 2019 World Nursing Conference in London on the topic of “Creating High Reliability Health Systems.”
Before that, she had served as the chief nursing officer of St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center in Paterson, where she led the regional medical center in attaining their third and fourth Magnet re-designations.
Kem Louie, William Paterson professor emerita of nursing, who served as inaugural director of the graduate program when it launched, said she is thrilled to see the growth of the program.
“It has been wonderful to follow these nursing leaders and see the difference their commitment and the DNP degree made in their practice,” she said.
Christiam Fajardo, DNP ’21, site director of nursing at St. Joseph’s Health in Wayne and a three-time William Paterson graduate, now also serves as an adjunct professor in the School of Nursing.
“Earning my DNP from William Paterson University has really strengthened my clinical expertise, grounded me in evidence-based practice, and expanded my ability to lead with clarity, compassion, and confidence,” he said. “The curriculum challenged me to think critically about systems-level change, patient outcomes, and the vital role that I would play as a DNP prepared nurse, specifically providing advocacy in health care.”
A leader in educating New Jersey’s health care workforce for nearly 60 years, William Paterson University launched its School of Nursing in September 2023 in response to its growing nursing student enrollment. Undergraduate nursing enrollment more than doubled between 2019 and 2023, with graduate enrollment more than tripling in that same period.
In the past five years, the University has graduated 2,460 new and advanced-practice nurses, many of whom are employed in New Jersey, helping to alleviate the nursing shortage across the state.
William Paterson’s 41-credit DNP program emphasizes holistic clinical leadership through inter-professional collaboration in multiple healthcare settings and data-driven practice with the use of technology to advance quality of care. Students complete over 1,000 supervised post-baccalaureate practice hours and a scholarly clinical project addressing real-world health challenges.
The University’s School of Nursing features cutting-edge facilities and technology, including the Nel Bolger RN Simulation Laboratory—an advanced replica of a modern hospital environment. The lab is equipped with interactive patient simulators representing diverse ages, genders, and racial backgrounds; they can breathe, blink, speak, and exhibit a range of medical conditions and vital signs, providing students with realistic, hands-on clinical training.
