UR Nursing Earns Renewal of Apple Distinguished School Recognition

The University of Rochester School of Nursing has been again recognized as an Apple Distinguished School for 2024-2027. The designation recognizes the School’s continued success in creating engaging, digital learning environments to better prepare the nursing workforce.

Apple Distinguished Schools are centers for innovation, leadership, and educational excellence. They use Apple technology to connect students to the world, fuel creativity, deepen collaboration, and make learning personal.

“Our strategic approach at the School of Nursing has been not only to embrace technology, but to integrate it into all aspects of what we do,” said Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Education and Innovation Lydia Rotondo, DNP, RN, CNS, FNAP. “The complexity of care today has been influenced by both the rapid development of technology and increases in scientific knowledge, creating opportunities for us to consider how we can prepare our nurses to be dynamic systems thinkers.”

The School of Nursing was first recognized by Apple in 2021, and was among the first nursing schools to earn this designation. It came just three years after faculty and staff began to reinvent the School’s accelerated bachelor’s program by transitioning to a competency-based, collaborative approach to the curriculum that emphasized active and collaborative learning to foster the development of clinical judgment skills.

The School’s Redefining our Classroom (iRoc) initiative, introduced in 2018, has leveraged iPads to transform traditional classrooms into dynamic digital learning environments.

Since then, the School opened a 26,000-square-foot learning facility with advanced simulation, VR, augmented reality, and experiential learning spaces. It was endorsed by the International Nursing Association for Clinical Simulation and Learning in 2022. In 2023, the School received AACN’s Innovations in Professional Nursing Education Award, and earlier this summer was named a 2024 National League for Nursing Center of Excellence in Nursing Education.

The School of Nursing consistently ranks among the top 25 U.S. nursing schools for its bachelor’s and master’s programs and is renowned for pioneering the Unification Model, blending research and education with clinical practice as part of the University of Rochester Medical Center.

"We are committed to fostering a culture of innovation and excellence in nursing education,” said Tara Serwetnyk, EdD, RN, NPD-BC, director of academic innovation at the School of Nursing and co-leader of the iRoc initiative. “By incorporating new technological advances and interactive activities into nursing education, we are better preparing practice-ready nurses, and ensuring that they are confident when they enter the workforce.”

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