Dr. Josy Nduku, an assistant professor of nursing at UA Little Rock, has been honored for outstanding teaching and research skills this spring.

In her first award, the UA Little Rock College of Business, Health, and Human Services awarded Nduku the Faculty Excellence Award in Teaching.

Nduku serves as the RN-BSN online program coordinator, where she helps hundreds of working registered nurses complete their bachelor’s degrees. Colleagues describe Nduku’s leadership and teaching style as empowering and supportive. She inspires others to reach their full potential through setting clear goals and expectations.

Aaron Baxter, a 2021 graduate of UA Little Rock with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, said that Nduku exemplified superior leadership and professionalism in and out of the classroom.

“Whether it was behind the podium or at the bedside, she invited her students to engage in the process of learning; promoting and encouraging critical-thinking skills that would later be the fundamental principle which separates good nurses from exceptional ones,” Baxter said. “As her student, I could always count on Dr. Nduku to maintain high expectations of her students, understanding that we would one day require high expectations of ourselves to provide the safest and best of care for our patients.”

Nduku believes that her passion to impart knowledge to students is what makes her a good teacher.

“I want to produce students who are better than me and can practice at a higher level,” she said. “I want to inspire them to be their best selves. I also have to take into accounts the standards of practice and make sure that my teaching aligns with those in accordance with my philosophy for education.”

In her second award of the spring, Nduku received the Outstanding Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing Research Award for her presentation at the 2022 Arkansas Nursing Research Conference held at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Her presentation was on the “Impact of the Coronavirus Pandemic on Course Performance of Registered Nurses Enrolled in an Online RN-BSN Program at a Metropolitan University” with collaborators Carolyn Hunter Layne and Dr. Lakeisha Falls. The research project investigated the challenges online nursing students faced while completing their bachelor’s degrees during the pandemic.

“I wanted to understand how the pandemic impacted our nursing students and what else we needed to do to help our students,” Nduku said. “We found that students were having a hard time implementing projects at a place of employment because they had so many COVID restrictions in the hospitals. Students also found it difficult to meet in person and implement the projects.”

A native of Cameroon, Africa, Nduku received a Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Master of Science in Nursing, and Doctor of Nursing Practice from the University of Central Arkansas.