Dr. Julie Coon is the Interim Dean of the College of Allied Health Sciences and the Director of the School of Nursing at Ferris State University.  She earned her Ed.D in Educational Leadership from Western Michigan University in 1997.  Prior to her current administrative appointments she attained the rank of Professor of Nursing as a faculty member for seventeen years.  In 1994 she was recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education as the Michigan Professor of the Year.  Her disciplinary research interests focused on critical thinking attributes of both students and nursing faculty.  She served as a consultant for a variety of academic and clinical settings to promote ways to help nurses and educators better understand and acquire critical thinking skills and dispositions.  As an academic department head she has assumed a variety of leadership roles within the university, but also at the state and regional levels in the advancement of the profession of nursing .  She is currently working with a newly formed state association of deans of health professions programs in Michigan.