I am currently an Associate Professor at the University of Iowa College of Nursing. I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Lebanon Valley College of Pennsylvania in 1977; a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia in 1979; a Master of Science in Nursing degree from the University of Toronto in 1986; and a PhD in Nursing Science from the University of South Carolina in 1994.

My masters degree from the University of Toronto is in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing with a focus on Consultation/Liaison Psychiatry. In my PhD program at the University of South Carolina, I focused on mental health in later life, more specifically, the experience of depression and dispiritedness in the elderly.

I have been a member of the Society of Rogerian Scholars since its inception in 1988. Both my Master's thesis and my dissertation were conceptualizied within Martha E. Rogers Science of Unitary Human Beings. In my Master thesis I examined the relationship of the experience of pleasant guided imagery with human field motion and time experience. In my dissertation, I created and tested a research method derived from Rogers' ontology and epistemology. The Unitary Field Pattern Portrait research method is a hermeneutic phenomenological method of inquiry designed to create a "portrait" of a significant health experience interpreted within the context of Rogers' postualates and principles. In the dissertation, I used the method to create a unitary portrait of the experience of dispiritedness in later life.

My wife and I joined the nursing faculty at the University of Iowa in August 1998. Before relocating to Iowa, I have been fortunate to have lived in a lot of different places. These moves were related to my father's 24 year career in the Army and my wife's and my choices concerning where we wished to pursue our higher education. I was born in San Francisco, then we moved to Louisiana for a couple of years, and then off to Germany for 6 years. We returned to the United States in 1964 and I lived in New Jersey until I completed high school. I went off to college in central Pennsylvania and then lived in Philadelphia for 4 years. I then moved to Toronto, Ontario, Canada where I lived for 9 years. From Canada, we lived in Washington, DC and then for three years in South Carolina where I completed doctoral studies. From South Carolina, we moved to Seattle, Washington where my wife, Janette Taylor, completed her PhD in Nursing from the University of Washington.

While my wife was completing her doctoral studies, I taught for 5 years (93-98) at Pacific Lutheran University where I was awarded the University Faculty Excellence Award for "inspirational and artful teaching of nursing science; leadership in curricular development and its connection with caring for people, for research into issues affecting human beings in later life shared at conferences and publications" in 1997.

I am very fortunate to be able to be mentored and work closely with such noted nursing scholars as Kathleen Coen Buckwalter, RN; PhD, FAAN and Toni Tripp Reimer, RN; PhD, FAAN here at the University of Iowa. I'm continuing to grow by expanding my teaching and developing programs of research designed to relieve family caregiver burden and dispiritedness in later life. After living in so many different places, it is here in Iowa that I finally sense a certain rootedness . . .

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The University of Iowa College of Nursing
324 Nursing Building
Iowa City, IA 52242
Ph: 319-335-7039
Fax: 319-335-9990
howard-butcher@uiowa.edu