Dr. Cheryl D. Witt, PhD, RN
Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs
Dr. Witt is an Associate Professor and Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs at the University of Kentucky College of Nursing. She is also an Ag Extension Specialist Senior at the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food, and Environment; otherwise known as the Ag Nurse. She uses her 30-year plus nursing experience and love for farm families to pursue her research interest of improving the health and safety of farmers and farm families.
Dr. Witt, along with the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, initiated a collaborative group of key stakeholders from across the state to address the levels of stress, depressive symptoms, and suicide among our farmers as well as to promote physical health and safety in our farmers.
She uses outreach, research, collaboration, education and mainly a boots-on-the-ground approach to provide the farmers and farm families what they need where they need it.
The Raising Hope Safety, Health, and Rescue team recently restructured and is now a division under the Kentucky Department of Agriculture due to the support of Kentucky’s Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell. The farmer-centered program has expanded and grown to include several major partnerships. The program has been so successful that the Kentucky General Assembly was also convinced of the continued need for supporting the health and safety of our farmers and farm families that the budget for Raising Hope was doubled for the next 2 fiscal years to 1 million dollars per year. Most recently a ribbon was cut for the inaugural use of the Mobile Agriculture Safety and Health (MASH) Barn to be used to provide continued education, training, and health screenings in our agricultural communities across the Commonwealth.
Dr. Witt returns the College of Nursing as an Associate Professor and the Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs, where she is eager to continue to support the continued success of the University of Kentucky College of Nursing.
