College of the Redwoods has hired a new full time Nursing faculty member, Caroline Haug. Although she is the new full-time faculty member, she is a familiar face at CR. Haug has been working at CR for 18 years as an associate faculty member, supervising the clinical psychiatric rotations, and as the Clinical Coordinator for psychiatric nursing.
Haug got her Licensed Vocational Nursing (LVN) degree at CR’s Del Norte campus in 1996. After graduating, she moved to Humboldt where she worked for seven years in geriatrics at various care homes, and part time at Sempervirens while studying for her Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing (BSN) at HSU, which she received in 2001. After she received her BSN, Haug started working full time for Sempervirens as the Outpatient Supervisor.
Haug then went on to receive her Master’s degree at Sonoma State University in Leadership and Management in Nursing, and is now in school working toward her Family Nurse Practitioner’s (FNP) certificate at Sonoma State, which she will receive in spring of 2021.
Haug has also worked for many years at St. Joseph’s hospital helping to build their Psychiatric Nursing department, and was integral in setting up their Behavioral Assessment and Response Team (BART) and the SUBOXONE program at the hospital.
In her new role at CR, Haug will be a lecturer in NURS 4, Nursing Science and Practice Concepts, and her area of specialty is Psychiatric, Mental Health, Community Health and Geriatrics. Her passions are suicide prevention and fighting the opioid epidemic.
“I am really happy to be teaching because it will give me an opportunity to instill strong values and ethics in nursing into the next generation of nurses,” said Haug. “I hope to impart the importance of honesty in nursing, by teaching students to not cover up mistakes, but to learn from them.”
She was very inspired by Sharon Mellet, who was her nursing teacher at the CR Del Norte campus in the 1990’s. Mellet ran the nursing program in Del Norte from 1975 to 2005. Mellet inspired Haug to be a better nurse, and gave her the desire to become a teacher. Haug says she always knew she would end up teaching.
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