2005 Distinguished Alumna
Wendy Smith
B.S. Nursing, 1979 and M.S. Nursing, 1986
School of Science and Technology
Professor of Nursing and Director of the
Family Nurse Practitioner Program,
Sonoma State University
 Dr. Smith began her work at Sonoma State University as a lecturer in the undergraduate and graduate nursing programs. In 1994 she became the Director of the graduate Family Nurse Practitioner Program (FNP) while completing her Doctoral degree.
She was appointed as a tenure track faculty member in 1995 and has been a leader in the nursing department's FNP program at Sonoma State University for over ten years.
Since becoming the Director, Dr. Smith has written and been awarded seven competitive grants. She has procured over $2.7 million in funding support for the delivery of the FNP program in rural areas in California. She has utilized the federal grants awards to launch an innovative distance delivery program to rural CSU campuses.
She and her team expanded the program by offering the graduate FNP curriculum to rural campuses that do not have the faculty expertise and/or resources to provide advanced practice nursing programs in their communities.
In addition, $500,000 of the grant awards was directed to help support their
educational endeavors of student trainees. Program grants have benefited Sonoma State University and sister campuses Humboldt, Chico and Stanislaus by funding advanced practice education at all sites, covered faculty salaries, equipment costs and operating expenses.
In turn, these grants benefited local communities and service areas by enabling nurse practitioner students to work in medical offices, rural and community clinics, and homeless shelters, providing a myriad of what are described as medically underserved populations.
As part of that mandate, the grants have funded positions for faculty in clinics that serve the poor and needy; two current clinics are the Jewish Free Clinic in Cotati and the Modesto Gospel Mission Clinic.
Under Dr. Smith's leadership, the FNP program was the first on the SSU campus to employ the medium of telebroadcasting using one of the first generation CODEC systems purchased by the Instructional Media Department. As the FNP program has evolved, so has the technology.
Today, Dr. Smith and the FNP program faculty team rely on Web-based instruction as delivery method to the rural campuses. Dr. Smith also supervises the SSU Health Maintenance Center, a nurse managed clinic on the SSU campus that provides low cost health care to the community.
Since Dr. Smith has been the FNP program director, 345 students have graduated from the program; 60 of those students have been from the distance program in rural CSU campuses.
Student and graduate data demonstrate that the distance program nurse practitioners have served the people of California well, and the program has brought recognition to the California State University System by providing quality health to demographic and geographic medically underserved populations.
In addition to her Sonoma State University bachelor's and master's degrees, Dr. Smith holds a DNS from the University of California, San Francisco, an Adult Education Credential from UC Berkeley Extension, an Associate Science Degree from Santa Rosa Junior College, and a Diploma in Nursing from Vancouver General Hospital of Nursing.
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