A few years ago, paths on campus were littered with cigarettes and the air was not as fresh. The nursing school’s new dean helped change that when she led the effort to make UCLA a tobacco-free campus.
Linda Sarna, a UCLA alumna and longtime faculty member who led the UCLA tobacco-free initiative, became the new dean of the UCLA School of Nursing in November 2016. The initiative banned the use of tobacco on campus in 2013.
Sarna said she began her career in healthcare as an oncology nurse in the 1970s where she witnessed the consequences of lung cancer. She now serves as the lead investigator of Tobacco Free Nurses, an organization that helps educate nurses in how to assist tobacco-dependent patients.
“I focused on people suffering from lung cancer,” Sarna said. “(The goal was to) help people quit smoking by giving them education, resources, and support they needed.”
Helping others quit smoking when she was a nurse motivated her to work on preventative measures for students as a faculty member, so she spearheaded the UCLA tobacco-free initiative.
“It was a profound change,” Sarna said. “I know even now it’s not perfect, but I think that once people understood the importance of having a smoke-free environment for young people who are coming here to live and learn – it made a big difference.”
Helping others has always been her motivation in her career, said Sarna. She initially pursued nursing because she wanted a career that would positively influence her community.
“I started talking to other students who were in the nursing program and I just thought that it would fit with my goal (to have) a positive impact on the world and society,” Sarna said. “I can do it anywhere in the world. It was the perfect career choice for me.”
Sarna said she was drawn back to UCLA and became a professor because of the university’s pioneering and integrative approach to the nursing sciences.
“UCLA was the first baccalaureate nursing program west of the Mississippi,” said Sarna. “Now we understand that having (both) a liberal arts education, a science-based education is very important for the people who are intimately involved in nursing care.”
She also said she wants to make stronger connections between the healthcare sciences on campus that will be beneficial for nursing students.
When she was interim dean of the nursing school, she helped balance the budgets of UCLA’s nursing health center and clinic on Skid Row.
“From the very beginning, I wanted to do whatever I could to move the school forward,” Sarna said. “I wasn’t a placeholder treading-the-water dean. I was an activist dean.”
Nancy Jo Bush, a nursing professor and Sarna’s colleague, said she thinks Sarna quickly gained admiration from her colleagues as a faculty member.
“(Sarna) really is an unselfish mentor,” Bush said. “She shares her wealth of her experience and knowledge openly. She provides clinical knowledge and experiences and also encouragement and role modeling.”
She would often share her experiences at parties she would host every year for oncology graduates, Bush said. At her “English tea parties,” Sarna would encourage students, normally dressed in scrubs, to wear dresses and hats.
One of Sarna’s goals as the new dean is to ensure the UCLA School of Nursing maintains both its academic prestige and its inviting environment, she said.
“We educate fabulous students and we intersect with a very diverse and interesting community,” Sarna said. “I want to make certain that people are joyful in what they do, which means that they will stay and that other people will come.”