With more than 20 years of elite experience as a professional nurse, Cynthia Booher, PhD, RN, also is a vastly accomplished leader and educator in her field. In 2024, she became the dean of nursing at Charter College, working from the campus in Anchorage, Alaska. Overseeing the entire nursing department, Dr. Booher leads 20 faculty members, manages the budget, and focuses on growing the program’s reach to students across the state and the country. In the long term, her goal is to elevate Charter’s mission of serving a diverse population through student-centered, collaborative learning.
Before joining Charter College, Dr. Booher was director of nursing at Providence Extended Care, a 100-bed facility. In this role, she led more than 200 caregivers, managed the facility’s operations, and worked to maintain the highest standard of care. Previously, she was a nurse educator with the same organization, designing and implementing training programs for the nursing staff. Dr. Booher was also a school nurse with the Anchorage School District, where she received multiple leadership awards for her efforts in enhancing health care services within the school system.
Dr. Booher’s educational side of her career included working with the University of Alaska Anchorage as an assistant professor of nursing. For four years, she nurtured the development of future nurses, guiding students through their research and coursework responsibilities. She particularly enjoyed mentoring students and helping them develop projects that led to improvements in patient care. Dr. Booher took great pride in teaching students how to reason clinically, and for her doctorate, she developed a clinical reasoning model that can be used by other educators to enhance student learning. As a well-regarded contributor to her field, her publications have focused on clinical reasoning and have contributed valuable insights to her professional community. For her dedication to nursing and education, Dr. Booher has consistently been recognized by peers and professional organizations. In 2023, she was named Nurse of the Year by Alaska Dispatch News. In addition, she received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Winston-Salem State University.
Earlier in her academic career, Dr. Booher was an associate professor at Guilford Technical Community College, teaching nursing and guiding students through intensive training programs. She was a registered nurse at Moses Cone-Wesley Long Community Health Foundation Inc., before which she worked with Hospice and Palliative Care in Winston Salem. Further, Dr. Booher was a longtime registered nurse at Novant Health. With a long-standing passion for education stemming from her early career experience as a high school chemistry teacher, she ultimately realized she wanted to do more than teach. Encouraged by her mother, who remembered Dr. Booher’s childhood desire to become a nurse, she transitioned to nursing. After discovering she loved the work, combining her interest with a career in nursing education was a perfect fit.
Well-credentialed, Dr. Booher holds key certifications, including a legal nurse consultant certification from the Center for Legal Studies, and she is a certified director of nursing services, nurse educator, dementia practitioner, and end-of-life educator. Dr. Booher’s formal academic background includes a Doctor of Philosophy in nursing science from the University of Phoenix, a master’s degree in nursing education from Winston-Salem State University, and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Winston-Salem State University. Alongside these degrees, she graduated from the University of North Carolina Asheville with a Bachelor of Science in chemistry.
Dr. Booher finds joy spending time with her family, including involvement with her son’s sporting events. She also enjoys Jazzercise and painting. Committed to her professional community, she serves as the president-elect of the Alaska School Nurses Association and holds positions as the director-at-large for the Alaska Nurses Association and as the president of the North Carolina Nurses Association. Moreover, Dr. Booher was past president of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.