Pamela Short serves at AUCON as an Assistant Clinical Professor. She is a certified Mental Health First Aid instructor and the founder of Kenny’s Kouncil, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization established to provide resources to individuals affected by mental illness or impairment and their family members. Short is a member of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association (APNA) and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). She is a South by Southwest (SXSW) presenter, aiming to educate others on self-care strategies for a healthy state of mind. Short is an Auburn alumnus, having completed both her bachelor’s (1993) and master’s (2018) degrees at AUSON. After graduating in 1993, she worked in the Intensive Care Unit at Four Rivers Medical Center, now Vaughan Regional Medical Center, in Selma, AL. Short has a wealth of teaching experience as an adjunct instructor in psychiatric mental health, medical-surgical nursing, evidence-based practice, fundamentals, and palliative health care courses at Wallace Community College, Tuskegee University, Jacksonville State University & Auburn University Montgomery (AUM). As an assistant clinical instructor at Jacksonville State University, Short’s teaching and clinical experiences encompass psychiatric mental health, fundamentals, and emergency/disaster relief management, which she brings to her present appointment. She also served on the COVID task force, assisting students, faculty, and staff during the height of the pandemic. Her clinical experiences with students at Crisis Intervention and in-patient facilities have broadened her passion for advocating for those struggling with mental health conditions. Pamela teaches the psychiatric mental health course. Her research interests focus on improving mental health through the implementation of self-care strategies across the lifespan, maternal mental health, evaluating postpartum depression among breastfeeding mothers, the use of virtual reality simulation in a mental health course, and identifying the most reliable and valid screening tool to diagnose alcoholism in the geriatric population.