Back to the classroom

In 1968, Susan Gunby graduated with her diploma from the Georgia Baptist School of Nursing and accepted a job in the emergency room at Georgia Baptist Hospital, now known as Atlanta Medical Center. It was exactly where she wanted to be.

Three weeks later, the nursing school director called Gunby to ask if she would accept a teaching position instead. It proved to be right where she was supposed to be.

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Barry Williams/AJC Special

Dr. Gunby RN, PhD, Dean and Professior, Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University poses in her office.

“I went into nursing because I had a passion for clinical practice and wanted to work in a hospital, and I loved ER nursing the most,” said Gunby, RN, Ph.D. “Teaching was never anything I’d thought about doing.”

When Gunby was a senior nursing student, she took over teaching a class of juniors when a faculty member was ill — and administrators noticed her potential. Agreeing to teach a class on nursing fundamentals was the start of a 40-year career as a nurse educator and administrator.

Next month Gunby will step down as dean of Mercer University’s Georgia Baptist College of Nursing — a position she’s held for 20 years — to teach nursing full time.

“People always say that I’m stepping down as dean, but what I tell my students is that I’m stepping up to teaching,” she said.

Gunby is looking forward to the move.

“I can’t tell you how excited and invigorated I am to be going back to teaching,” she said. “Seeing students grow and progress brings me the most satisfaction. Recently, my husband was in the hospital and his nurse was a young Georgia Baptist graduate. She did a splendid job and I was so proud of her.

“Everywhere I go, I run into former Georgia Baptist graduates — there are 6,594 to date — who tell me how much graduating from our college means to them, and I can’t help but think of all the lives they touch with their nursing.”

For the first eight years of her career, Gunby touched students and patients directly. She worked as a clinical instructor in the hospital and taught in the classroom as she studied for her BSN and MN degrees.

Kathryn Ransbotham, director of the school of nursing, recognized Gunby’s leadership abilities and made her associate director in 1977.

When Ransbotham retired in 1986, Gunby took over as director and then dean at a critical juncture in nursing education. Diploma programs were gradually being replaced by college and university programs that offered bachelor’s degrees.

Gunby led the efforts to make the Georgia Baptist School of Nursing an independent, single-purpose college. In the early and mid 1990s, the school became the first independent college of nursing accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

“I wouldn’t want to live through that again, but those were exciting times, building a college from scratch. We had such a sense of purpose, persistence and passion,” she said.

The faculty had to reapply for their jobs and form a general education division. Gunby became president and had to hire a bursar, registrar, admissions director and financial services officer to meet accreditation standards.

“When people said we couldn’t do something, we just let it roll off our backs, and did it. We had a can-do attitude, and nurses know how to organize,” Gunby said. “People called us pioneers for other independent nursing colleges around the country, and I guess we were.”

In September 1997, when Georgia Baptist Health Care System sold its downtown hospital, the college began searching for a new home.

“We met with Mercer University to buy some land on their Atlanta campus, and that led to a year of negotiations to merge our college into the university in 2001,” Gunby said.

Nursing enhanced Mercer’s health care programs, which already included medicine and pharmacy. The nursing college gained additional resources, opportunities for interdisciplinary research and a structure for higher degrees.

The nursing college launched its MSN program in 2002. A doctorate in nursing program will be launched this fall, and a doctorate of nursing practice program is proposed to start in 2010.

Enrollment has increased significantly since the merger, in part through an innovative partnership with Piedmont Healthcare, which provides scholarships and support for the Center for Health and Learning, a joint initiative between the two organizations.

“What started as a simple conversation about scholarships has been a wonderful way to advance practice and education and do it collaboratively,” Gunby said.

Wallace L. Daniel, Mercer University provost, praised Gunby for 20 years of strong leadership.

“She has, throughout these years, seen her primary task as the development of students, and she has had a profound influence on so many of them, an influence that goes much beyond the boundaries of the university,” Daniel said.

In 2006, the National Students Nurses Association honored Gunby with its Leader of Leaders Award.

Recently, a nurse and former student from the 1970s told Gunby that she still practices what Gunby taught her about caring for patients with tracheotomy tubes.

“What power teachers have that they don’t even realize they have,” Gunby said. “I hope to make a difference in the classroom. There is no doubt that we make a difference at the bedside when we teach nursing students.”