Rozella May Schlotfeldt, PhD, RN, FAAN
Cuyahoga County (1914 – 2005)
2007 Women's Hall of Fame Inductee -- Health Care

Former Dean of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Schlotfeldt was a remarkable woman, world-wide nursing icon, visionary leader and tireless champion of excellence in nursing. .

Nominated by May L. Wykle, PhD, RN, FAAN, FGSA
Dean, Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing
Case Western Reserve University

Rozella May Schlotfeldt, Dean Emerita, Professor Emerita, and Honorary Alumna of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, was a remarkable woman, a world-wide nursing icon, visionary leader and tireless champion of excellence in nursing.

Dr. Schlotfeldt graduated from the University of Iowa in 1935 with a B.S. in Nursing. In 1938, she became an instructor at the University of Iowa Hospitals School of Nursing and a supervisor of maternity nursing. From 1944 to 1946, Dr. Schlotfeldt was 2nd and then 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps serving in France. In 1947, she earned her Master’s in Nursing Education and Administration from the University of Chicago. She then moved on to Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, but took a leave in the mid-1950s to earn her Ph.D. in Education and Curriculum Development from the University of Chicago.

In 1960, Dr. Schlotfeldt became Dean of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing in Cleveland. She served on a national task force that developed the 1964 Nurse Training Act, which provided nurses with financial assistance for advanced education. She maximized learning for students and improved quality of care for patients by creating a ‘collaboration model’ in which faculty became heads of departments at University Hospitals of Cleveland, developed various improvements in nursing education, promoted graduate education and nursing research, and conceptualized the Nursing Doctorate (ND).

Among her other activities, Dr. Schlotfeldt was a founder of the Midwest Nursing Research Society and held leadership roles in the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International, and the International Council of Nurses. After retiring as Dean in 1972, she held visiting professorships in nursing at many universities. She received honorary degrees from five universities, and numerous distinguished awards and honors from nursing organizations nationally and internationally. In 1995, she was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing.

Dr. Schlotfeldt changed the face of nursing, first in Cleveland and then, as her ideas reverberated more widely, throughout the world. Scores of nurses attribute their successes to her influence and acknowledge her as the person who changed their career paths and their lives forever.