Leading educator and health policy analyst assumes post in August

SAN FRANCISCO, May 3, 2007 -- After a national search, Shirley A. Girouard, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN, has been named director of the San Francisco State University School of Nursing. She succeeds Beatrice Yorker, now dean of the College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Los Angeles.

Girouard, a native of New London, Conn., assumes the post in August. Before accepting the position at SF State, she was an associate professor of nursing at Southern Connecticut State University, health consultant for an early childcare program, and a geriatric staff nurse at Evergreen Woods Health Facility in North Branford, Conn. She holds a Ph.D. in health and social policy from Brandeis University; a master's degree in medical-surgical nursing from Yale University; a master's in medical sociology from University of Connecticut and a bachelor's degree in sociology from Eastern Connecticut State College. She is also a graduate of the Hartford Hospital School of Nursing in Hartford, Conn.

Girouard's public service includes terms in the State of New Hampshire House of Representatives and as a policy analyst for the state of Connecticut. She also served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Center for Nursing, a state agency that addressed nursing workforce issues.

In the nonprofit sector, she served as executive director of the American Nurses Association from 1993 to 1994, program officer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from 1987 to 1993, and vice president of child health and financing at the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions. Girouard has consulted in the areas of organization, delivery and financing of health care services with several companies and organizations including the Orkand Corp. and Central Vermont Hospital.