Gittings named FMU School of Health Sciences dean

Francis Marion University has named Dr. Karen Gittings, a highly respected nursing educator, as the dean of its School of Health Sciences.

Gittings has been a faculty member at FMU since 2006 and has been chair of the Department of Nursing since 2016. She has served the School of Health Sciences in a number of positions, including the associate dean of the School of Health Sciences, director of the MSN-Nurse Educator track, and professor of Nursing.

Gittings has also served in a variety of roles outside of the university previously in her career, including as a registered nurse within the former Carolinas Hospital System, now Medical University of South Carolina Florence’s Cardiovascular Intensive Care Unit. 

Gittings, a native of Ebensburg, Pa., holds a diploma of nursing from the Washington Hospital School of Nursing, a bachelor of science in nursing from the University of Maryland – Baltimore, a master’s of science in nursing education from Duquesne University, and a doctor of nursing practice from Duquesne University.

Dr. Fred Carter, president of Francis Marion University, says the School of Health Sciences will benefit immensely from Gittings’s continued leadership.

“Karen has played a vital role in the growth and expansion of the School of Health Sciences,” Carter says. “She is an exceptional academician with the perfect blend of conceptual and applied expertise. Above all, she’s one of the most gracious and collaborative administrators on campus — exactly the person you want to lead health and medical practitioners and their students.”