In 2025, Dr. Kimberly Silver Dunker had an eventful year that included earning a PhD in Leadership and Higher Education from Andrews University, moving to Loma Linda from Northern California where she led Pacific Union College’s (PUC) nursing program as Dean of Nursing, and joining our faculty here at Loma Linda University School of Nursing (LLUSN) in time to start the 2025-26 school year as freshly appointed Director of the MS DNP programs. Her professional path is clearly marked by a persistent calling to be an educator, one she recognized early in her career and steadily pursued as each position uniquely prepared her to meet the challenges of the next.
An East Coast native, Dr. Dunker grew up in the New England area. At a very early age she was exposed to nursing from virtually every angle, “I’m a fourth generation nurse. My great grandmother owned a nursing home, my grandmother was a nurse administrator at New England Memorial Hospital, and my mother was a nurse administrator for gerontology in a nursing home. There is quite a legacy there.” Dr. Dunker describes growing up on the hospital grounds of New England Memorial Hospital in Stoneham, Massachusetts, where she worked her first job as a transporter. Modeled as a family tradition, nursing felt like a natural profession for Dr. Dunker to pursue.
Dr. Dunker counts herself lucky to have discovered the joy of teaching early on in her career.
She attended Atlantic Union College (AUC), earning her AS in 2000 then BSN in 2001 and MSN from Regis College in 2004. Shortly thereafter, Dr. Dunker and her family moved to Ohio where she got her first taste of teaching nursing, and she never looked back. 2008 brought her back to New England where she taught at her alma mater, AUC, and returned to Regis College to complete her DNP degree. Coincidentally, after completing her DNP capstone project on nursing faculty development and core competencies at UMass Graduate School of Nursing, she was invited to join the faculty there in 2010 as the school’s first full-time DNP. Those first few years on the UMass faculty were exciting. At the time, DNP/PhD collaboration was far from the status quo and she found these opportunities quite gratifying. After a few years and various positions held, Dr. Dunker transferred to a tenured position at Worcester State University as the RN coordinator.
The next major step in her career came with a move to serve as Dean of Nursing at a for-profit institution in Tennessee. Though the position opened up new leadership opportunities, “I quickly learned that my calling was really with not-for-profit Christian higher education,” Dr. Dunker recalls. Providentially, an offer from PUC to serve as Dean of Nursing came in 2021 and Dr. Dunker’s educational leadership goals and personal values were happily aligned. Four years at PUC flew by and the next thing she knew LLUSN was calling with an opportunity to fulfill a longtime desire to lead in higher education on the graduate side of nursing. Though the offer was compelling, Dr. Dunker still felt a pull to continue her leadership at PUC—the decision to leave did not come easily. However, she had already built a strong, collaborative working relationship with LLUSN’s Dean Dr. Shawn Collins throughout her years working at PUC. She credits Dr. Collins for steering her to complete her PhD in Leadership and Higher Education, a program he previously completed and one that would serve her well in career opportunities to come. “When [Dr. Collins] called and said there was an opening here at Loma Linda, I thought, ‘How often do you get to go to a position where you already know you are going to like working with your boss?’”
Dr. Dunker counts herself lucky to have discovered the joy of teaching early on in her career. A mentor once told her, “The impact that you are going to have will not just be your patients. Think about how many students you will have, how many patients they will each care for.” She kept this guidance close to heart, striving to approach each student as both a unique individual and an incredible opportunity to positively impact thousands of people.
In her new role leading the MS/DNP programs, Dr. Dunker works to exemplify authentic and transformational leadership underscoring the interconnectedness of staff, faculty, administrators, and students: “We do not exist without each other. This is a cooperative game we are playing, and when we win—we all win.” Ultimately, Dr. Dunker’s vision for her role and the future of these programs is, “...to lead my school in cultivating a learning community that fosters excellent academic education with an ethical and spiritual emphasis that fosters human growth and development.”
Dr. Dunker’s story is one of purpose, perseverance, and deep-rooted passion for nursing education. As she steps into this new chapter at LLUSN, her commitment to excellence, collaboration, and faith-based leadership positions her to make a lasting impact on students, faculty, and the future of graduate nursing education.