Phyllis Beck Kritek, RN, PhD, FAAN
Professor and Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza Chair in Nursing, University of St. Thomas Carol and Odis Peavy School of Nursing
Phyllis Beck Kritek has deep roots in health care beginning with her clinical career in mental health nursing and extended to several academic leadership roles including dean, department chairperson, director of research, and creator and director of two doctoral programs. Long recognized for her leadership in the national nursing community, Dr. Kritek is a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN), and a member of several professional organizations, where she has served in a variety of leadership roles.
Dr. Kritek has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and books and served on the editorial board of several nursing journals, including serving as the Editor of Nursing Forum from 1989‑1992.Her first book, Negotiating at an Uneven Table: Developing Moral Courage in Resolving Our Conflicts, now in its 2nd edition, explores conflict engagement under conditions of structured inequity, an area of expertise she developed during a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship. She has also edited and contributed to three books giving voice to nursing stories: Reflections on healing: A central nursing construct. Kritek, P. B. (Ed.).(1997); Change leadership in nursing: How change occurs in a complex hospital system: Brigham and Women’s Hospital nurses tell their storyHickey, M. & Kritek, P. B. (Eds.). (2011); and Realizing the future of nursing: VA nurses tell their story,Rick, C., & Kritek, P. B. (Eds.). (2015).
Dr. Kritek has been providing consultation and training in conflict engagement for over thirty years, resigning her academic position in 2003 to dedicate herself full time to this work for thirteen years. She is sought as a speaker, a consultant, and a facilitator by organizations and health care agencies exploring strategic changes and the conflicts they evoke.
Her involvement in international work has been as a consultant, educator, and group facilitator, providing services to health care communities in Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Brazil, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, China and India. While continuing to provide consultative services, she has recently returned to academe. With a part-time appointment as a Professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, she is participating in the emergence of a collaborative community, contributing to the development of graduate education in the school.
