Skip to main content
Olney Central College Nursing Instructor Anne Hustad has completed her Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.
The DNP is one of two doctorate degrees available in the nursing field. SIU-E’s program combines classwork along with a comprehensive research project.
“I am so excited to have it finished,” Hustad said. “I have been working on it for two years and COVID-19 changed how we did things. There was no graduation and I had to do my project and discussions through Zoom, instead of in person.”
Hustad’s project, “Dedicated Preceptors Improve Nurse Residency,” explored how the use of a residency can improve nurse retention at small rural hospitals. “I met with representatives of a hospital’s education department and its administration to come up with a plan to determine what I could do to help them,” Hustad said. “They had done a nurse residency before and were looking for ways to improve it.”
Hustad has served as a nursing instructor and head of the nursing department at OCC for 15 years. She is the advisor for both the OCC Student Nurses Association and Alpha Delta Nu, the nursing honor society. She also provides the manual skills evaluation for CNAs who want to enter the nursing program, but are not on the state registry.
Hustad is a graduate of the IECC/OCC Associate Degree Nursing Program, having attended Frontier Community College in Fairfield. She completed her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and her master’s degree from Regis University in Denver, Colo.
Hustad is a Certified Nurse Educator and was selected by the Illinois Board of Higher Education to participate in the Nurse Educator Fellowship Program in 2018. Before coming to OCC, Hustad worked 11 years as a school nurse in the Clay City Community Unit School District. She also worked as a WIC nurse for the Clay County Health Department and as a staff nurse at Richland Memorial Hospital, the Veterans Administration Medical Center and Flora Manor.
