Building a Healthier Future: Morrison Family College of Health Marks Milestones – Newsroom

When Dr. MayKao Y. Hang walked into her first office at the University of St. Thomas as founding dean of the Morrison Family College of Health in 2019, the university had a new leader with the right vision and entrepreneurial spirit that shined through from her long-time experience with start-ups, community organization and fundraising centered on health and human services.

In addition to launching the college while the world was entering a global pandemic, she was also asked within her first week to fold in Health and Exercise Science, merging not just two, but three academic units while simultaneously launching a School of Nursing. The plan was bigger and bolder than initially envisioned.

“So, I rolled up my sleeves,” Hang said. “I met with hundreds of people in year one. That’s how you build something new, forging connections and learning from the wisdom of more experienced leaders.”

The Morrison Family College of Health has since become one of the fastest-growing initiatives at the university, nearly doubling in size in just five years. Career outcomes for graduates run 97-100% employed or in further education, and nursing licensure pass rates are consistently above 90%.

The Susan S. Morrison School of Nursing saw its first Master of Science in Nursing graduates, a cohort of 37, enter the profession in 2024. A Master of Public Health launched this fall, and discussions have started for a Doctor of Nursing Practice, leveraging the strengths of the Opus College of Business and the School of Education, to prepare leaders in the nursing profession who can step up to become chief nursing officers and help in other sectors of the economy.

As Hang puts it: “We accept and love people as they are, and we teach students to see the world through another’s eyes.”

For Hang, a seasoned leader who had previously led the Wilder Foundation through a decade of program transformation to make it more impactful and relevant, it meant staying the course to focus on the vision and mission with the faculty that generated success.

“I don’t know how I could think more highly of an individual,” said Trustee Penny Wheeler, who was CEO of Allina Health at the time the university was planning the College of Health.

Hang’s track record, community fluency, research grounding, and social-justice compass made the choice obvious.

In the fall St. Thomas held an investiture for Hang, the Morrison Family Distinguished Chair and founding dean. Delayed by the pandemic, the ceremony celebrated her leadership as well as mark how far the college she helped build has come since 2019.

“The chapter we are writing is because MayKao’s unique gifts and life experiences and values and faith are so remarkable and so beautiful,” President Rob Vischer said at her investiture. “We are here with the help of her colleagues, benefactors, the students and everybody pitching in with this vision. We’re not just trying to help students get jobs – although we do that and we’re really good at it – we’re really trying to shape the future in powerful ways.” 

Both John and Susan Morrison, whose names grace the college and its nursing school, were at the investiture. They have come to know Hang well since she was named dean.

“Management is everything. If you don’t have good management, you don’t have good results,” John said. “MayKao is a very good manager. She understands what to do.”

Susan, who is a retired nurse, added: “She’s a breath of fresh air and has so much enthusiasm.”

The Morrisons’ investment in the college reflects their belief in its vision. Earlier this year they made a $5 million gift to outfit space in Schoenecker Center for the growing nursing program and future degree programs. They also maintain a presence at the college. A restaurant server even once recognized them while they were dining and said, “You’re the ones who started the nursing school at St. Thomas. I’m a student there. I wanted to say thank you.”

When St. Thomas first began exploring the idea of a new College of Health, psychology professor Chris Vye was part of the committee tasked with envisioning what such a bold step might look like. From the start, the group pushed beyond traditional health care education.

“One of the things we put out there right from the beginning was a focus on the social determinants of health, those systemic and contextual factors that shape people’s well-being,” Vye said. “That idea eventually morphed into what we now call Whole Person Health.”

The steering committee expected resistance when they presented their proposal to university leadership and trustees. Instead, the response surprised them: “The message we got was, go big or go home. And that was a great feeling,” Vye said.

“The advisory council was impressed from the start that faculty weren’t just teaching in silos,” Wenger said. “They were sitting at the same table, asking how a nurse, a psychologist, and a social worker might work together for the same patient. That’s unusual.”

The whole-person health framework for the college shapes how students learn, as well as how the university engages the broader community. Courses across nursing, social work, psychology and exercise science emphasize caring for the mind, body and spirit together, and understanding the cultural and systemic factors that influence well-being. That same commitment extends beyond the classroom through the university’s annual Whole Person Health Summit, which brings together health care leaders, professionals, policymakers, students, faculty and community members to share learnings from both their challenges and opportunities from lived and professional experience to co-create new ideas that advance health equity through culturally responsive, collaborative care.

Trustee and alum Pat Ryan ’75, who was on the advisory council, points out that whole-person health is about mind, body, spirit, and community, paired with prevention and mental health. He wanted to know, “How do we keep people healthier long before they ever get sick?” He determined it required crossing traditional silos: social work with psychology, nursing with business, and engineering with public health. It also required facing workforce realities related to who the patients were and where they lived.

“We have an increasing minority population of patients, but not an increasing minority population of professionals,” Ryan said. “Everybody inside and outside the industry was saying, we’ve got to do something better.” For him, that meant prevention and mental health as much as hospital care.

His wife, Ann Ryan, a former nurse, grounds it in patient memory. “When someone leaves a hospital, they remember how they were taken care of, the love and kindness.” Students are living that culture.

Advisory Council Chair Brian Wenger said that the college’s strength lies in preparing students for the workforce. “We talk all the time in health care about shortages and silos,” he said. “St. Thomas students are entering with teamwork in their DNA, and that’s rare. Employers are telling us, these students don’t just know the material, they know how to collaborate.”

To deepen training, Hang recently authorized more than 200 virtual-reality licenses for high-fidelity simulations in the nursing labs. The college also continues to explore new programs, including a potential Physician Assistant program, contingent on partners and donors.

The students find value in the course offerings and how the program shapes them for their future career.

Student Will Wallace wasn’t thinking of a health care major when he arrived at St. Thomas. “Before St. Thomas, I thought health care was just doctors and shots. Now I see an entire ecosystem,” he said.

At Welcome Week during his first year at St. Thomas, Wallace wandered over to the exercise science table, introduced himself to the department chair, and asked how to get involved. Two days later, he was shadowing upper-class students running preseason fitness tests on Division I athletes and taking advantage of the Sport Science Institute, a unique college of health and athletics partnership to give undergraduate students an opportunity for paid work and to gain skills in conducting research.

“At 20 years old, I’m leading my own research project. That level of trust is rare, and it makes you feel the college is invested in you,” he said.

Classmate Ella Boerger arrived at St. Thomas undecided, torn between nursing and exercise science, but sure about playing D-I women’s hockey. She chose exercise science, where she has found professors who stay late to explain tough concepts and teammates who swap study hacks.

“The people are awesome,” Boerger said. “Everybody at St. Thomas truly cares about you.”