Dennis Sherrod

Dennis Sherrod serves as the inaugural Forsyth Medical Center Endowed Chair of Recruitment & Retention and Professor in the Division of Nursing at Winston-Salem State University, Winston-Salem, NC. His position was established to research recruitment and retention issues relating to students, nursing faculty, staff nurses, and nurse managers and is the first of its kind in the nation.

Dennis has more than thirty years of nursing experience and over a decade of recruitment and retention expertise. Prior to joining Winston-Salem State University, he served as Associate Director of the North Carolina Center for Nursing where he directed the North Carolina Institute for Nursing Excellence, the North Carolina Recruitment and Retention Grant Program and the statewide "Nursing: The Power to Make a Difference" campaign designed to encourage youth and minorities to consider nursing and health careers.

On the national level, Dennis serves as President of the Center for American Nurses where he develops resources, strategies, and tools to help nurses manage evolving workforce issues and succeed in their careers. In 2003 Dr. Sherrod was selected as one of twenty nurses in the nation as a Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive Fellow and he currently serves as President-elect of the Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive Alumni Association.

In 2003, he coauthored his first book titled Surviving the Shortage: Creative Recruitment and Retention Strategies and in 2005 he coauthored a second book titled A Practical Guide to Recruitment and Retention which in 2007 was updated for therapy managers and titled The Essential Guide to Recruitment and Retention: Skills for Therapy Managers. He has authored numerous journal articles and serves on the editorial advisory boards of the Nursing Management journal, the Southeast Edition of Nursing Spectrum magazine, and the NC Medical Journal.

He received his bachelor’s in nursing at Barton College, Wilson, NC; his master's in nursing education at East Carolina University, Greenville, NC; and his doctorate in higher educational administration at NC State University, Raleigh, NC.

Dennis speaks nationally and internationally and brings a common sense approach to nurse recruitment and retention issues.