Dr. Joan Stanley Receives CNLA Lifetime Achievement Award

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) is pleased to announce that Dr. Joan Stanley, AACN’s Chief Academic Officer, has been honored with the inaugural CNLA Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be awarded in her honor moving forward.

With more than 30 years of service to AACN, Dr. Stanley has earned national recognition for her leadership in shaping nursing education from the baccalaureate to doctoral levels. She led the development and revision of AACN’s Essentials documents and has guided AACN’s work on several signature initiatives, including the development of the Clinical Nurse Leader role, the advancement of the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree, and the creation and implementation of the Consensus Model for APRN Regulation: Licensure, Accreditation, Certification, and Education.

Dr. Stanley is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Nursing and the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. She has received numerous honors, including the University of Maryland School of Nursing Inaugural Visionary Pioneer Award. She earned her BSN from Duke University, an MSN from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and a PhD in Higher Education Policy and Organization from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Stanley on this well-deserved recognition for her lifetime of service and her unwavering commitment to transforming healthcare through the Clinical Nurse Leader role.