Whitehouse Named Dean of Health Sciences at Nashville State
Nashville State Community College has a new dean of its School of Health Sciences. Donna Whitehouse, MHA, OTR, who has been serving as interim dean, was recently named dean of the highly respected health science programs at the College.
“Donna is a strategic, organized, respected, and visionary leader, with decades of experience in the healthcare industry,” said Nashville State’s Vice President of Academic Affairs Dr. Carol Rothstein. “I have every confidence that Donna will continue providing the required leadership needed to keep the School of Health Sciences operating at a high level.”
As dean, Whitehouse will be responsible for academic, programmatic, managerial, and fiscal oversight and leadership of the division that has Central Sterile Processing Technology, Health Sciences, Nursing, Occupational Therapy Assistant, and Surgical Technology programs. The School of Health Sciences also routinely coordinates with the Center for Workforce Development and Continuing Education on non-credit programming.
“For decades, Nashville State has produced high-quality talent in the healthcare field,” said Whitehouse. “Our graduates have been successful in large part due to the high-performing educators with their vast clinical experience providing expert instruction.”
Whitehouse has worked in teaching and leadership roles in the public/non-profit and private/for-profit sectors of education and healthcare for more than thirty years, with the last twenty spent in the community college arena.
Having started her career at Baptist Hospital (now St. Thomas), working in acute care and rehabilitation, Whitehouse moved to National Healthcare. At NHC, she served as regional coordinator of Occupational Therapy Services in southern and western Tennessee and north Alabama. She managed staffing, service delivery, and program development.
She applies her experience and excellence in teaching and leadership in higher education both in and outside the classroom through project management, program development, group facilitation and goal setting, and strategic planning.
She has served since 2018 as the team lead for Nashville State Community Colleges’ equity-based work, in collaboration with Achieving the Dream. In addition to spearheading college-wide special projects, Donna has served Nashville State as an Associate Professor of Occupational Therapy and as a Teaching Fellow.
Whitehouse is a licensed Occupational Therapist. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Occupational Therapy from the University of Tennessee, Center for the Health Sciences, in Memphis. After earning her Master's Degree in Health Administration from the University of Missouri, Columbia, she moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where she taught and coordinated clinical experiences at Washington University. Whitehouse earned a Graduate Certificate in Community College Leadership from East Tennessee State University.
