For nearly a decade, Christine Sommers has been teaching the art and science of nursing to students in the southeast Asian country of Indonesia. As chief executive officer and executive dean of the faculty of nursing at the Universitas Pelita Harapan, Sommers has been tasked with guiding a nursing program that admits up to 400 scholarship students each year. While overseeing the program, Sommers earned her Doctor of Nursing from the University of Kansas School of Nursing in 2019. 

Sommers grew up in Anchorage, Alaska. She said she was drawn to nursing because she wanted to help people. 

“While I was attending nursing school, my father had his second heart attack. As I spent many hours with him in the ICU, I knew that I wanted to become a critical care nurse,” Sommers said. “But I was also interested in teaching.” 

Sommers served as a nurse and a nursing faculty member in a number of settings in the United States until Indonesia called in 2012. Her husband took a job teaching middle and high school at Sekolah Pelita Harapan, and Sommers was hired at Universitas Pelita Harapan, which is a Christian-based university with more than 15,000 students. She worked on her doctorate at the KU School of Nursing while teaching. She said earning her doctorate was a very positive experience, even though she was halfway around the world. 

“The KU program was flexible enough that I could complete the online portion while in Indonesia and come to campus for the intensive in-person classes for a week in the summer,” Sommers said. “Even though I was teaching full-time, I found that I was able to use what I was learning in the PhD program to deal with real issues that I was facing in Indonesia.” 

Sommers said although she is far from home, she and her husband enjoy living in Indonesia. 

“It’s a beautiful and diverse country,” she said. “The people are hospitable and friendly. And the food is amazing with a lot of different varieties from the different regions of the country.”