Biography
Rhetaugh Graves Dumas, PhD, RN, FAAN
Vice Provost Emerita, Dean Emerita and Lucille Cole Professor of Nursing
The University of Michigan School of Nursing
"This venturesome [journey] I chose resulted in not having many mentors, because I was always trying something different. I ended up making a composite role model as I did as a youngster. I emulated some characteristics and strengths from a variety of individuals and molded what I selected to make a strengthened me." -Rhetaugh G. Dumas May 18, 1986
Rhetaugh G. Dumas, PhD, who served as Dean of the School of Nursing from 1981 to 1994, was an esteemed international leader in nursing and health care. Her exemplary career had a major impact in the advancement of nursing, health care, and academic programs at this University. Under her stewardship, the School of Nursing has advanced to a position of prominence among the top four nursing schools in the country. She led dramatic progress in forging cooperative and collaborative connections with the School of Medicine and collaborative research and other initiatives between faculty and students of the School of Nursing and the colleagues in related disciplines. Her vision, insight, and wise counsel led to changes that have positioned both the school and nursing services at the University of Michigan Medical Center for meeting the challenges of the future. She remained dean until 1994, when she was named Vice Provost for Health Affairs and the Lucille Cole Professor of Nursing. She retired from active faculty status December, 2001, after 20 years of service to the University of Michigan.
As dean of the School of Nursing, Professor Dumas was an ardent advocate of excellence in nursing research and scholarship as a means of advancing the discipline of nursing. She provided a powerful vision of nursing and demonstrated considerable personal and professional influence in many spheres. A renowned national and international scholar in the area of psychiatric nursing, Professor Dumas conducted extensive externally funded research on clinical experiences in nursing practice and authored many journal articles and book chapters. She served on a number of national boards and committees, and for several years served on the President's National Bioethics Advisory Commission.
Dr. Dumas obtained the B.S. degree in Nursing from Dillard University in 1951 and the M.S. degree in Psychiatric Nursing from Yale University in 1961. She received the Ph.D. degree in Social Psychology from Union Graduate School #1 (Antioch College Campus), Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities in 1975.
She began her appointment as Dean of the University of Michigan School of Nursing and Professor of Nursing in 1981 and was reappointed in 1986 and 1991 to second and third terms. Before arriving at Michigan, Dr. Dumas was with the National Institute of Mental Health where she served as Deputy Director of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (1979-1981), and Chief, Psychiatric Nursing Education Branch of the Division of Manpower and Training Programs (1972-1976). Prior to these national administrative positions, Dr. Dumas was a faculty member of Yale University's School of Nursing from 1962-1972 and served as Associate Professor and Chair of its Psychiatric Nursing Program (1966-1972) and Director of Nursing of the Connecticut Mental Health Center at the Yale-New Haven Medical Center. Dr. Dumas held many other administrative and teaching positions during her career. Dr. Dumas participated in the C.G. Jung Institute of Chicago and Zurich, Switzerland exploring the current conceptions of the nature of leadership and completed her membership on the National Commission of the Future Structure of the Veteran's Administration during an administrative leave in 1991-92.
Dr. Dumas received honorary doctoral degrees from Yale University, Simmons College, the University of Cincinnati, Dillard University, and the University of San Diego. In addition, she received the Mentor Award from Sigma Theta Tau, International Honor Society of Nursing. She was a member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences since 1983. She was the first woman, and the first nurse, to serve as deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health, and was the first African American woman to serve as dean at the University of Michigan. She was one of 36 distinguished nurses who were Charter Fellows of the American Academy of Nursing when it was established in 1973, and served as the academy's president from 1987-89.
The attributes for which she stood and taught to her students are her legacy. She will be a part of Michigan forever.