Studying public health as a college student, Dr. Lisa Whitfield-Harris was hesitant to expand her career to higher education, a field that required her to do more public speaking than she was used to.
“I knew I wanted to be in nursing,” she says. “I didn’t figure it out until later on in my career that I actually wanted to make a difference for students.”
Whitfield-Harris is currently an assistant professor and program director of the Community Systems Administration at Philadelphia University + Thomas Jefferson University’s Jefferson City Campus. She plans and coordinates the activities of the Community Systems Administration (CSA) MSN program, teaches at the graduate and undergraduate levels and acts as a faculty adviser for graduate students.
Before this position, Whitfield-Harris was a staff nurse at a hospital, an operations administrator for a nonprofit and a nursing adviser at another higher education institution. She says she likes to “keep active” since she gets “bored quickly” working in the same position for a long time.
A Philadelphia native, Whitfield-Harris is a shining star in her industry and has already received several honors, awards and research grants, including ones from the National League for Nursing and the Association of Black Nurse Faculty, Inc.
Whitfield-Harris received a bachelor’s degree in nursing at West Chester University, a master’s degree in nursing and marketing at La Salle University, and a doctorate in nursing at Duquesne University.
Her article “Workplace Environmental Issues of African American Nurse Faculty in Predominately White Institutions,” published in the Association of Black Nursing Faculty’s journal, has been widely cited and referenced. The article analyzed previously published literature on the workplace environment of African-American faculty working in predominantly White institutions.
