MSN, University of Minnesota
BSN, University of Minnesota

Jan Welch started teaching at Bushnell as adjunct faculty in the summer of 2016, progressed to part-time education in 2017 and has held a full-time teaching position since summer 2018.  As the Director of Nursing she oversees both the ABSN and RN to BSN programs.  She completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at the University of Minnesota in 1977, and her Master of Science in Nursing in 1981 with a focus on nursing education and medical-surgical nursing. Her area of clinical expertise is acute care medical-surgical nursing where she has worked as both a staff and charge nurse. She has also worked as a hospital clinical educator and as a nurse diabetes educator. In addition, she has many years of experience as a nurse case manager where she focused on discharge planning, palliative and safe client care transitions. She is a member of Sigma Theta Tau Nursing Honor Society and is currently the Vice President of Bushnell University’s Alpha Alpha Tau chapter. Other organizational affiliations include the American Association of Colleges of Nursing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Leadership Network, the American Nurses Association, the National RN-Baccalaureate Faculty Forum, the Online Learning Consortium, and Nurses Christian Fellowship.

Jan has extensive teaching experience in a pre-licensure nursing program in a variety of courses including health promotion, acute and chronic illness nursing, integrative clinical practicum, pathophysiology and pharmacology. She also has many years of experience teaching clinical nursing skills in facility and lab settings, including the use of simulation in nursing. Her acute care clinical foci include cardiac, medicine, post-surgical, oncology, and case management nursing. Jan has a special interest in continuous quality improvement and is invested in elevating the presence of DEI content/activities in the nursing curricula at Bushnell. She is an active member and volunteer at Westside Church in Bend, OR, and also volunteers at MountainStar Family Relief Nursery. Jan enjoys spending time with family and is an avid world traveler and a health and fitness enthusiast who is nurtured by nature.