In spring of 2008, Karen de la Cruz visited BYU campus. During her visit, she had a prompting. It said, “This is your next stop. Get ready.”

De la Cruz was content in her Colorado town of Pueblo. She worked at the same job for almost 13 years. She had family there. Her two youngest children were still in high school. It never entered her mind to move to Utah.

She never planned on becoming a nurse either. It was only after her husband was diagnosed with a spinal tumor that she entered the nursing profession, which enabled her to care for him properly. And she only planned to work enough to keep her license.

Now four graduate degrees later, de la Cruz is one of the newest members of the College of Nursing faculty. “Everything just fell into place,” de la Cruz said of the experience, still amazed at how it all worked out.

De la Cruz grew up in an Air Force family that moved often, their longest stay was three years in Kansas. Her family lived across the world in places such as New Jersey, California, North and South Carolina, France and the Pacific, specifically Guam. Every place her family moved, her parents made sure to tour the area and visit the various sites.

“There wasn’t any place I hated living because my parents made it such an adventure,” she said. “I learned to eat anything—except spicy foods.”

This vast exposure to culture taught her from a young age that there is diversity in the world. “I have such an appreciation not only for our nation but also for different people and cultures,” de la Cruz said. “My parents taught me that there are a lot of right ways of doing things.”

She finished high school in Guam and married before attending college. She graduated from California State University at Hayward with a degree in nursing ten days before the birth of her eighth child.

Her education didn’t stop there. De la Cruz received a master’s degree in nursing administration from the University of Phoenix and continued on to receive three post master’s certificates from Colorado State University: acute care nurse practitioner, family nurse practitioner, and nurse educator.

De la Cruz said curiosity was the motivation for her continued education. “I believe you should never stop learning,” she said. Now de la Cruz looks forward to an exciting adventure of teaching students about the profession she loves.

“I love being a nurse. It’s one of those few jobs in this world that you can go home and look in the mirror and know you are changing people’s lives every day. And that’s an incredible feeling,” she said. “I want my students to know that.”

De la Cruz is the mother of 10 children. Her last child, who is currently a freshman, is the first of her children to attend BYU.