A Veteran, a Patient and Now a Dean: How Dr. Andrew Nydegger’s Journey Led Him to Westcliff’s College of Nursing

Westcliff University is proud to welcome Dr. Andrew Nydegger as the new Dean of its College of Nursing, a seasoned educator, clinician and military veteran whose career has been defined by an unwavering belief that great nursing education has the power to change the world. Dr. Nydegger’s appointment comes at a pivotal moment for a college that is rapidly establishing itself as one of Southern California’s most ambitious nursing programs.

“I want to bring my experience as an educator and as a health care professional into the Westcliff environment and help drive our students to be the future leaders of tomorrow,” Nydegger said. “I want to create a learning environment where students feel motivated, where they feel accepted and where they feel like they can really achieve all of their goals and all of their passions. When we help students achieve their career goals, we also help their families, we help their friends and we help everyone that they are associated with.”

Leadership appointments reveal an institution’s priorities and Westcliff’s choice of Dr. Nydegger as dean signals something significant about where its College of Nursing is headed. What distinguishes him from most academic leaders is not the length of his resume but the depth of his perspective, shaped by years as a patient, a struggling student and a clinician who learned what this profession truly demands from the inside out. That experience informs everything about how he intends to lead.

To understand where Dr. Nydegger is taking Westcliff’s College of Nursing, it helps to understand where he has been.

What is Dr. Andrew Nydegger’s Background in Nursing and Healthcare?

Dr. Nydegger’s connection to nursing runs deeper than any academic credential can convey and it begins long before he ever sets foot in a classroom.

He started his professional career in banking before the Iraq War prompted him to answer a different call, one that would take him through two years of military service and ultimately land him seriously ill and in the care of a nurse practitioner who worked beyond her hours and pushed past every dead end until she found the truth. She saved his life and in doing so gave him something no degree program could: a firsthand understanding of what it means to have a nurse who refuses to give up on a patient.

“I didn’t really know what the difference between a doctor and a nurse practitioner was at the time, and I almost felt like I was being demoted,” Nydegger said. “But that nurse practitioner really saved my life. She didn’t take the standard answers. She dug deeper and she dug deeper. She spent hours after work researching, studying, trying to figure out what was going on with me personally.”

That experience set him on a path toward nursing, one that included failing Fundamentals of Nursing twice before finding his footing, a detail he does not shy away from because he believes it speaks directly to the students sitting in his classrooms. 

That stumble made him a better educator than any clinical rotation or graduate seminar ever could, because it is hard to dismiss a struggling student when you have been one yourself.

What is the Dean’s Vision for Westcliff’s College of Nursing?

Dr. Nydegger’s vision is anchored in three things: student preparation, faculty excellence and a global ambition that extends well beyond the walls of the Corona campus.

On student preparation, he is unambiguous about the standard he intends to hold. Westcliff’s nursing programs are built around NCLEX readiness from day one, and Dr. Nydegger is not interested in modest goals.

“My goal is 100% first-time pass rates for everyone,” he said. “When a student leaves Westcliff, they’re going to be mentally prepared, physically prepared and socially prepared to become a nurse. It’s not just about whether a nurse knows what a stethoscope is or what an IV is. It goes a lot deeper than that. It goes into critical thinking and clinical judgment, and we want to make sure that even our new nurses come into the hospital knowing that if they’re presenting with a challenging situation, they know the steps they need to take to overcome it.”

That preparation extends into Westcliff’s state-of-the-art simulation labs, which Dr. Nydegger sees as one of the college’s most powerful tools for building nurse-ready graduates. The labs are designed to replicate a hospital environment so precisely that students arrive at their clinical rotations having already felt what it means to be in that setting.

“When students come in, they’re going to know what it feels like to be in that hospital before they ever get there,” he said. “Having that simulated experience where they can make mistakes, where they can feel comfortable, that is where real learning happens. We want them to be able to practice and to fail in a safe environment, because that is how you build the kind of nurse who does not panic when something goes wrong.”

What Does Dr. Nydegger Believe it Takes to Build an Exceptional College of Nursing?

Dr. Nydegger is equally direct about what he expects from the faculty under his leadership. A nursing program is only as strong as the educators delivering it, and he has no patience for the complacency he has seen erode programs at other institutions.

“We want to make sure that our faculty come first and that they are given the resources and tools to be successful,” he said. “But I have also seen a lot of faculty that get very complacent in the education realm and don’t keep up on their skills. We want to make sure that our faculty are expert nurses as well as expert teachers, because a faculty member who is not keeping up with clinical practice cannot fully prepare a student for what they will face in a hospital.”

That standard, he argues, is what separates a program that produces competent nurses from one that produces exceptional ones. And for Dr. Nydegger, the stakes of that distinction are deeply personal. At the core of everything he believes about nursing is the nurse practitioner who saved his life and whose legacy he carries into every classroom, every faculty meeting and every decision he makes as dean.

“What she did for me doesn’t just end with me. It begins with me,” he said. “The average nurse gets to influence the lives of 30,000 patients and family members over the course of their career. Every student I get to pass her legacy onto gets to influence 30,000 other people. That is the weight of what we are doing here. That is why this matters.”

Why Should Prospective Nursing Students Choose Westcliff?

Dr. Nydegger’s vision for Westcliff’s College of Nursing is not confined to a single campus or a single graduating class. He is thinking bigger than that, and he wants the students who walk through Westcliff’s doors to think that way too.

“We have such a big nursing shortage in the world, and here at Westcliff, our goal is to eliminate that nursing shortage,” he said. “We can only do that by providing high quality education to students to help them become the best nurses and the future leaders of health care. We want to be a global organization. We want to reach every corner of the U.S., but we also want to reach out to the countries that really need nursing. Not just reach a small community of people, but really change the world.”

Westcliff’s College of Nursing offers two pathways to a career in registered nursing. The Bachelor of Science in Nursing is designed for students entering with a high school diploma or some college credits, and the Entry-Level Master of Science in Nursing is built specifically for career changers who already hold a bachelor’s or higher degree in another field. Both programs are approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing, grounded in hands-on simulation training and supported by clinical experience with leading health care providers across the Greater Inland Empire. Every student who walks through Westcliff’s doors carries the potential to shape the lives of tens of thousands of patients before their career is through.

Explore Westcliff’s College of Nursing and everything the BSN and ELM programs have to offer at westcliff.edu/nursing.