Leadership Transition

“The College of Nursing has exponentially matured and expanded in the past four years,” Kasper said in a message to her faculty. “Your dedication in serving our talented students, the College, UNM, and the state of New Mexico has been inspiring.”

Kasper, who also holds Virginia P. Crenshaw endowed professorship, has led a transformation of the College of Nursing since coming to UNM in 2018.

The student body has grown 35 percent in the past three years, thanks to additional funding from the New Mexico Legislature, and the College currently educates more than 60 percent of the bachelor of science in nursing students in the state.

During Kasper’s tenure, the College expanded its programming at the UNM Health Sciences Rio Rancho campus, where it recently opened a new simulation center. The College has also added new degree tracks, including a post-baccalaureate doctorate of nursing practice, the freshman direct entry program and the accelerated bachelor of nursing practice.

Kasper’s commitment to research is also reflected in the establishment of the College’s first wet research lab and the inclusion of dedicated research space in the design for the new College of Nursing/College of Population Health building.

Before joining UNM, Kasper served as a senior nurse executive in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Nursing Services. In that post, she advised the chief nursing officer on academics, research and policy and was a professor in the Daniel K. Inouye Graduate School of Nursing at Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Md.

She also served as principal investigator on National Institutes of Health, NASA and Department of Veterans Affairs grants has studied the role of "desert dust" metals on the pathobiology of Gulf War Illness.