Leslie Folds
As a little girl I wanted to know the reasons people think, feel and behave as they do. My quest was unrelenting. Along with Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street, my father, an attorney, was a major source of my research. I would crawl up in his lap when he came home from work for my customary debriefing of his adventures with clients, judges, politicians and city employees.
I grew, and my fascination became my passion. My mother recognized that, from an early age, I had a real knack for understanding the real issues or problems a person, a situation or a relationship was experiencing. Her commitment to watch for and applaud my unique gifts is the reason I chose to study and obtain a degree in psychology from Wheaton College. I worked a year as a counselor at Vanderbilt Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Hospital, experiencing the role of an advanced practice nurse in the psychiatric setting.
After receiving a MSN in Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing from Vanderbilt University, I practiced as a staff nurse for a year. I then worked for a year in a clinical nurse specialist position with a psychiatrist in Middle Tennessee.
I devoted the next eight years to teaching psychiatric nursing full-time for an undergraduate nursing program in Tennessee prior to joining the Belmont faculty in August 2003. It is an honor to be part of a nursing program and faculty with the outstanding academic reputation of Belmont and to provide the knowledge of our school's discipline from a Christian perspective. Coming to Belmont, for me, was coming home.
