Morgan Clark is the new Lamar Community College (LCC) Director of Nursing and Allied Health Programs, but she is hardly a stranger to the two-year institution.
Clark served as an adjunct professor of nursing at the college for four years and an alum of LCC, so she has, quite literally, been on all sides of its nursing program. As a working nurse, Clark has specialized in outpatient facilities for severely and persistently mentally ill patients in clinical settings and with newly diagnosed HIV-positive patients. She has experience in acute care in both surgical and emergency rooms and has worked in public health in Title X clinics as well as substance abuse prevention and maternal/child health settings. She also served as full-time faculty for Otero College for two years.
Growing the nursing department and its enrollment at LCC is a top priority, Clark said, who started in her role on July 1 of this year. She said she aims to ensure the department remains sustainable and uses dynamic and evidence-based approaches in its curriculum.
“It has always been important to my husband and me to return to our home community and give back professionally to an area that gave so much to us,” she said. “LCC gave both of us the supportive start we needed in our lives, and we want to create that kind of foundation for future generations too.”
LCC President Dr. Linda Lujan said she is confident in Clark’s acumen as a nurse and leader of the department.
“Morgan will continue the upward trajectory of the nursing department and allied health programs at LCC,” Lujan said. “She has been a student here, so she knows exactly what our students need. I have full faith that she will lead this department and its students well.”
Like most of the world for the past year and a half, the COVID-19 pandemic rocked the nursing industry. Clark said she is particularly cognizant of that and wants to help support her department and its students through the many transitions that have come to the fore recently. Books, leadership and philosophy changes and COVID-19 protocols at the college and clinical sites are just some of the paradigm shifts she promises to help navigate.
“Things have changed a lot since early 2020. It is my goal that LCC’s nursing department provides personalized education to hardworking students seeking health program degrees,” she said. “We will work diligently to meet and exceed standards both from local workforce partners who have come to trust LCC produces excellent future employees.”
Clark earned an Associate in Science in Nursing from LCC in April 2012. She went on to get her Bachelor in Science in Nursing from UCCS that same year as part of its dual enrollment program with LCC. She also has a Master in Science in Nursing with an education emphasis from Grand Canyon University and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Nursing Practice from Regis College.