Dr. Janet S. Rami

Health & Human Services

A ‘visionary’ has been defined as a person with a clear, distinctive and specific vision of the future; a person with unusual foresight.  Dr. Janet Simmons Rami is an example of a true visionary in the field of nursing and health care.  In less than 20 years, Dr. Rami has taken a School of Nursing from a diagram on paper to what is now,  a multi-million dollar state of the art College of Nursing offering three degrees in nursing:  the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN); the Master’s of Science in Nursing with a specialty in Family Health Nursing (MSN) and the Doctor of Philosophy in Nursing (PhD), the only PhD in Nursing Program currently offered in the state of Louisiana.

Dr. Rami has dedicated 40 years of her life to the profession of nursing.  Her academic preparation in nursing began in 1970 when she received her undergraduate degree from Dillard University.  She went on to pursue her Master’s Degree in Cross-Cultural Nursing from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1979, and in 1992, she received her PhD from LSU in Research Methodology. Further studies were done at Harvard University in 1998 in Education Administration.

On August 31, 2005 amidst an unprecedented natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina, the Southern University School of Nursing, under the leadership of Dr. Rami, demonstrated exceptional capability in rapidly mobilizing resources needed for the efficient opening and on-going operation of the temporary shelter which was housed on the Southern University Campus in the F.G. Clark Activity Center.  When Hurricane Katrina evacuees were being placed in transitional trailer sites, Dr. Rami recognized an opportunity for the School of Nursing to provide an immediate infrastructure through which primary healthcare would be coordinated and delivered to hurricane evacuees.  This was the first step in Dr. Rami’s vision for the School of Nursing to adopt Renaissance Village, one of the largest trailer villages housing hurricane evacuees.
 
Dr. Rami had received numerous awards for her work and community service.  In 2007, Dr. Rami was inducted into the Nursing Hall of Fame by the Louisiana State Nurses Association and the Louisiana State Nurses Foundation. She also received the National Nurse Hero award by Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing

Currently, Dr. Rami is serving as the Interim Provost and Executive Vice-Chancellor at Southern University and A&M College, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Of all of her accomplishments, she is proudest of being the mother of three children: Cathy, Chad and Cheryl, and the grandmother of nine.