Profile of Dr. Cynthia Clark
Dr. Cynthia Clark is Strategic Nursing Advisor for ATI Nursing Education, Professor Emerita at Boise State University, and the Founder of Civility Matters™. As a clinician, she specialized in adolescent mental health, substance abuse intervention and recovery, and suicide and violence prevention. She is a leading expert in fostering civility and healthy work environments around the globe. Her groundbreaking work on fostering civility has brought national and international attention to the controversial issues of incivility in academic and work environments. Her theory-driven interventions, empirical measurements, theoretical models, and reflective assessments provide “best practices” to prevent, measure, and address uncivil behavior and to create healthy workplaces.
Dr. Clark serves as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, the NLN Academy of Nursing Education, and served as co-chair for the American Nurses Association Professional Panel on Incivility, Bullying, and Workplace Violence. She is a prolific researcher, presenter, author, and professional blogger. Her presentations number in the hundreds and her publications have appeared in a broad range of peer-reviewed and open-access venues. She is the recipient of numerous teaching, research, and service awards; including 3-time recipient of the Most Inspirational Professor Award, the NLN Excellence in Educational Research Award, the Journal of Nursing Education (JNE) Christine A. Tanner Scholarly Writing Award, and the prestigious Elizabeth Russell Belford Award for Excellence in Education, awarded by Sigma Theta Tau International. The first edition of her book, Creating and Sustaining Civility in Nursing Education,” received 1st place honors as the 2013 AJN Book of the Year. The 2nd edition is now available and a must-read for all educators and health care professionals.
Dr. Clark’s current research includes preparing nurses to address incivility in the practice setting; bridging the education-practice gap to create positive work cultures, designing and testing empirical instruments to measure and address incivility; integrating civility, professionalism, and ethical practice into nursing curricula; and conducting intervention studies to measure the effectiveness of cognitive rehearsal and evidence-based ‘scripting’ to address incivility and protect patient safety. Dr. Clark’s empirical instruments have been translated into several languages and used to conduct studies in the United States, Israel, Iran, Indonesia, the Philippines, the People’s Republic of China, Malaysia, Jordan, Canada, Uganda, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Jamaica, Greece, and Columbia. The Incivility in Nursing Education-Revised (INE-R) has been translated into 14 languages and a multisite, international study led by Drs. Mohammed Baqer Al-Jobouri and Patience SamsonAkpan is currently underway in 11 countries (Iraq, South Africa, Greece, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Philippines, the United States, Kenya, Chile, and Serbia). Dr. Clark has served as a committee member and content expert for several graduate level studies, both nationally and internationally; many students have used her empirical instruments in their doctoral dissertations, master’s theses, and other scholarly works.
Dr. Clark is also well known for her expertise in the area of scholarly teaching, learner-centered pedagogies, and active learning strategies. For the past 15 years, she has used live actors, simulation, and other innovative learning strategies to promote student engagement and deep learning. Her article on the use of live actors as a teaching strategy to address incivility in the practice setting published in Clinical Simulation in Nursing has been downloaded more than 2000 times by readers from the US, Turkey, Taiwan, China, Australia, Iran, and the UK since its release in June 2014. Dr. Clark has mentored dozens of faculty members in their growth as scholarly educators and learner-centered teachers and has conducted numerous classroom assessments to assist faculty in improving their pedagogical approaches.
Dr. Clark spends her leisure time hiking, exploring the great outdoors, traveling, cooking and reading. She
especially enjoys spending time with her beloved family and numerous rescue pets.