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Senate Statements 2022: Cole


I am Erin Johnson Cole, and I find it an honor to serve the University of Utah in advancing its aim for educational excellence. I am an assistant professor in the College of Nursing, where I have worked since 2017. I am a certified nurse midwife and women’s health nurse practitioner, and alongside my teaching and administrative roles, I continue to catch babies at the University Hospital and see patients at our University Health Redstone clinic in Park City. My heart and my background, however, started in education. I taught English and history at the Waterford School in Sandy, Utah, for a number of years before completing an accelerated BSN and my Doctor of Nursing Practice in nurse midwifery and women’s health at the University of Utah. I have taught in our nurse midwifery and women’s health program every semester since Spring 2018 and have functioned as the interim specialty track director for those programs since January 2021. As an educator, I personally place a high value on student feedback as a means of meeting the students where they are, improving the efficacy of particular activities or assessments, and ultimately keeping learning at the center of my courses. To achieve this, I conduct regular informal online surveys of students throughout each semester to understand what is helping students learn and what is not, as well as surveys of previous cohorts to understand whether my assignments have become useful clinical tools or not. As a program administrator, accurate student course feedback becomes important as a tool for me to mentor faculty and support them in improving their courses and to understand the broader student experience in our program. I have a commitment to ensuring that the University of Utah Student Course Feedback program is successful and effective and would be pleased to contribute to the work of the Senate Advisory Committee on Student Course Feedback. Thank you for your consideration.