Sandy Herron

Background

About Sandy Herron

I have been in the healthcare industry for 35 years. I started my career working as a nursing assistant in our local nursing home in Iowa. I truly loved caring for the elderly and providing them quality care, hearing their life stories, and becoming part of their extended family (in some instances). I worked in many nursing homes until I began my educational journey in 1990 with my Bachelor's Degree at Winona State University. I was a non-traditional student and had two children when I attended school. This was definitely a challenge and the nursing program was certainly a rigorous one. It was at that time, that our oldest daughter was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia and we struggled with the decision of me continuing with school. We were able to work through that as a family and I finished in four years. My first job as an RN was at a nursing home in St. Charles. I love that job; however, I was looking to expand my experiences and so I took at job at Mayo Clinic in Rochester on a surgical/trauma/thoracic/vascular unit. Boy did I learn a lot there! it is here that I learned of my love for teaching. I returned to WSU for my Master's degree in Nursing Education and as a Clinical Nurse Specialist. This took me about 3 years to complete. At the same time, I was working at Mayo 3/4 time and at a nursing home in Lewiston about 1/2 time. It was a busy time, needless to say. It was at that time that we had our fourth child. So, really busy. I continued working both jobs after finishing my master's program and then took a position as an adjunct faculty. My goal had been to be a professor at WSU. This was my dream job. I was lucky enough to have them hire me in 2008. I started the DNP program at Metropolitan State University in 2009-2011. During this time, I remained as a staff nurse at Mayo in Rochester. I have a strong belief that I make a better teacher when I am at the bedside as well keeping up with the current practice. I then went back to Mayo full-time as Nursing Administrative Specialist and had amazing experiencing moving projects through a large enterprise. I came back to WSU in 2016 as a full-time faculty and was elected to the chairperson role in 2018. My career has been filled with a tremendous amount of learning and amazing opportunities.