Smith joined the Claflin faculty in 2016. Her teaching load includes Nursing Research and Evidence-Based Practice, Nursing Informatics, Healthy Communities, and Nursing Leadership and Management. Smith enjoys integrating technology in her courses to enhance student success. It is her vision to secure the future of nursing through graduating professional nurses who are prepared to serve diverse patient populations. Dr. Smith is currently conducting research to prevent cardiovascular disease in African American young adults.
Under Smith’s leadership, Claflin University attained national nursing accreditation in 2018, was ranked the No. 1 Nursing program at an HBCU in the country in 2019, launched a Master of Science in Nursing program in 2021, received the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN) Diversity, Inclusion, and Sustainability in Nursing Education Lectureship Award in 2022, and secured over $1 million in funding for nursing programs.
Smith has inpatient clinical nursing experience in Surgical Stepdown, Progressive Care Unit, and Digestive Disease units at MUSC and St. Francis Hospitals. She is a member of the American Nurses Association, Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, and the Society of Gastroenterology Nurses and Associates, which named her a 2015-2017 Fellow. She is also a 2017 AACN Fellow of AACN’s Leadership in Academic Nursing Program.