19-03-2025
New nursing dean back at home
Mar. 18—A native Odessan is now officially heading up the School of Nursing at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center here.
Kelly Moseley was recently named regional dean of the school after serving as interim for a year. She replaces Sharon Cannon in the role.
A Permian High School graduate, Moseley attended Odessa College, Angelo State, where she earned a bachelor of science in nursing and a master of science in nursing with an education focus, and a doctorate in health sciences from Nova Southeastern University.
Starting out, Moseley wanted to be a writer, but then her grandfather got sick and being in the hospital and watching what the nurses did took her in another direction.
"I think my favorite part of what they did was spending time with him and helping to ease his fears. I thought that'd be a fun job just going to sit with patients and talk to them and get to know them and help them through whatever they're going through. So I switched my major to nursing," Moseley said.
Moseley began working at TTUHSC School of Nursing in August 2008 as the retention counselor for the accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. She said retention counselor was like a support person for students who were struggling in courses and she would help them take tests better.
She has taught several different courses since then and is currently co-director for the Center of Excellence in Evidence-Based Practice. Before joining TTUHSC, Moseley was a staff nurse at Medical Center Hospital and an adjunct instructor of pharmacology and clinical at Odessa College.
Moseley was named one of the Permian Basin Great 25 Nurses in 2019 and received the TTUHSC School of Nursing Exceptional Mentoring Award.
An instructor Moseley had at Odessa College, Lori Wingate, was the one who inspired her to go into the education end of nursing.
"She had us doing an assignment where we had to teach, like preschool-aged children about something. Our group picked sun safety, like wearing hats and sunscreen and stuff when you're playing in the sun. I think she really inspired me to go into education. I thought ... how fun to get to create these innovative assignments that your students really enjoy doing, and not just having them read from a book," she said.
Moseley was interim dean for a year at TTUHSC and was appointed to the permanent position Jan. 1.
Having grown up in Odessa and gone through school here is helpful in her new role.
"Although I've made a lot of contacts in this role with people that I didn't know before ... I did know of the resources that we did have in our community, so I kind of think that gave me a leg up on who to reach out to for certain things. And ... Dr. Sharon Cannon, she was an amazing mentor," Moseley said.
She added that she was fortunate that Cannon was able to show her the ropes and take her to meet people in the community.
Being from Odessa also helps her recruiting prospective nursing students whether it be from public, private or charter schools.
"I think that's a really good opportunity," she said. "We need to get into these areas and start reaching these kids at younger ages because by high school they pretty much know what they want to do. They may change their mind, but we need to reach them when they're younger," she said.
One of her big goals is to get students more active and involved in the community.
"I think people really don't know that we're here. I get asked constantly, oh, you drive to Lubbock every day? Our students get asked the same question. But I think that, one, we're tucked away over here, and we also don't have students out in their red scrubs, out in the community as often as I think they should be. I think that's a big part of nursing, too, is when you're out in the community, you see these resources that are available to your patients so when they start practicing as a nurse, they're like, hey, I remember doing this when I was in nursing school, this might benefit this patient," Moseley said.
The nursing school has seen increased enrollment this year — from 60 last spring to 87 this spring. Typically the summer sees lower enrollment. Last summer they had 11 and this summer they expect 23 students, Moseley said.
"We've done a lot more recruiting and advertising. Andrea (Storm) and her team are awesome; very helpful to us," Moseley said.
Storm is the Communications and Marketing Manager for the TTUHSC Odessa campus.
They had a recruiting event with Professor and physician Adrian Billings in Alpine.
"They had several students come from different high school areas that were rural high schools, and their parents thought the only option was going to Lubbock, so they were really excited to find that they could just drive a couple hours versus ... six or seven hours all the way to Lubbock. They could come closer to home and get to drive back home on weekends if they wanted to," Moseley said.
Moseley and her husband, Patrick, have two children.
She added that the passing rates for the national nursing exam are high and the staff is awesome.
"They love working with our students and they're (a) well-oiled machine," Moseley said.
TTUHSC School of Nursing Dean Holly Wei commented after Moseley's appointment that Moseley would do an excellent job of serving the community.
"Dr. Moseley is a native of the Permian Basin and has done an excellent job serving her community," Wei said in a news release. "She is committed to providing quality education to the next generation of nurses in West Texas."
