#35 Learning Matters with Sonya Grypma

Today we have with us Sonya Grypma, Vice Provost, Leadership & Graduate Studies and Dean of GLOBAL at Trinity Western University – discussing well-being, care and history in Higher Education and beyond.

Sonya joined TWU in 2007 as a faculty member in the School of Nursing, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2012. She served as Dean of Nursing from 2013-2019.

Both a nurse and historian, Sonya has been a research fellow at UBC, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Virginia. Her program of research for the past 20 years has focused on transnational nursing history, particularly the intersection of Canadian, American and Chinese nursing networks developed through philanthropic, missionary and nursing organizations prior to 1948. She has been an invited keynote speaker on four continents, and has published two scholarly books on missionary history:  Healing Henan:  Canadian Nurses at the North China Mission, 1888-1947 and China Interrupted:  Japanese Internment and the Reshaping of a Canadian Missionary Community, as well as a co-edited book entitled Transnational and Historical Perspectives on Global Health, Welfare and Humanitarianism. 

In addition to teaching responsibilities, Sonya has served on numerous committees, including TWU Senate, including as Chair and, most recently, as Senate Secretariat. She has also been involved in nursing education leadership provincially – as Chair of the Nursing Education Council of BC – and nationally. 

 She is currently President of the Canadian Association for Schools of Nursing--Association canadienne des écoles de sciences infirmières.