NLN Announces New Category for NLN Centers of Excellence in Nursing Education

NLN Announces New Category for NLN Centers of Excellence in Nursing Education

Creating Learning Environments that Impact Climate Change & Planetary Health

Washington, DC — With the undeniable impact of climate change and planetary health on the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities worldwide, the National League for Nursing announces a new addition to the prestigious NLN Centers of Excellence program: a new designation to publicly recognize schools for Creating Learning Environments that Impact Climate Change and Planetary Health. The inaugural center will be presented during the NLN Education Summit in Orlando, Florida, September 17-19, 2025.

With the 2024-2025 application cycle, all nursing education programs across the spectrum of higher education will now be eligible to earn this COE status, demonstrating how they have achieved a level of excellence through curricular and other initiatives that address environmental hazards.

“Linking human health with the health of planet Earth is vital to fulfilling our mission to promote excellence in nursing education to advance the health of our nation and global community. Through public recognition, the new COE designation will celebrate nursing programs that have achieved a level of excellence in advancing work in climate change, a public health and equity crisis that demands urgent action,” said NLN Chair Patricia Sharpnack, DNP, RN, CNE, NEA-BC, ANEF, FAAN, Dean and Strawbridge Professor at the Breen School of Nursing and Health Professions at Ursuline College in Ohio.

“Poor health outcomes resulting from climate change are projected to become only more severe as time goes on. With the introduction of this innovative COE, the National League for Nursing is proud to offer schools the opportunity to serve as shining examples of nursing education that take seriously the call to educate current and future nurses to enact practices and policies to address the adverse effects of climate change, improving health care for all,” said NLN President and CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN.

The new COE designation, Creating Learning Environments that Impact Climate Change and Planetary Health, was seeded at the 2022 NLN Education Summit, whose theme, Healthy Planet, Healthy People: Leading the Way through Education, Practice, and Policy, provided the foundation for a Vision Statement, Climate Change and Health, published the following year.

That statement highlighted the important role of nursing education in generating climate change-informed practice and in promoting leadership in public health policy surrounding climate change. The Strategic Action Group, which included two climate change experts and three former and current members of the NLN Center of Excellence Review Panel, met to craft the climate change-focused COE and define its criteria of excellence:

• Faculty and their leaders create a vision, expertise and a shared commitment that lead to strategies and actions to improve planetary health, including human health and well-being 
• Faculty design curricula across programs that integrate the science of planetary health threats, including climate change, and pose nursing and trans-disciplinary solutions to develop students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes for practice 
• Faculty engage in scholarly endeavors that address climate change and planetary health, including their impact on human health and wellbeing 
• Students and faculty actively engage with their communities to impact awareness, knowledge and/or action to improve planetary health and sustainable practices 
• Students, faculty and school leaders partner with their communities to advocate for policies that promote environmental and climate justice, health equity, planetary health, and population health and well-being 
• Faculty and school leaders engage their clinical partners to advance nurses’ knowledge and practices related to planetary health, sustainable practices such as decarbonization, and the health impacts of climate change 
  

The new designation fits with the COE’s history of adapting to changes in nursing education since the program’s creation in 2004, when the National League for Nursing invited nursing schools to apply to become a COE. The 2024-2025 COE application cycle, which for the first time will include this new designation, will open following the 2024 NLN Education Summit.

For more information about the program and application requirements, including the timeline for 2025 applications, visit NLN.org.

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