Dr. Shirlee J. Snyder earned her associate degree in nursing from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. She received a master’s degree in nursing with a minor in cardiovascular clinical specialisation and teaching from the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

After moving to California, she joined the faculty of the Samuel Merritt Hospital School of Nursing in Oakland. She is an associate professor alumna of SMC.
Shirlee earned her doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the University of San Francisco. Dr. Snyder lived in Portland, Oregon, for 8 years, teaching ADN at Portland Community College. The themes she discussed locally and globally were multimedia in the classroom and supporting ethnic and minority student success.
In 1998, Dr. Snyder accepted a position as nursing program director at the Community College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas, Nevada.

She jumped at the chance to teach the inaugural nursing class in the baccalaureate nursing program at Nevada’s first state institution, which opened in 2002.
She was dean of the School of Nursing at Nevada State College in Henderson from 2008-2012.

In 2009, Dr. Snyder visited Manila and Cebu, Philippines, to offer all-day seminars to 5,000 nursing students and 200 nursing instructors. She belongs to the ANA and Sigma Theta Tau. NLEAC and the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges have used her as a site visitor. She is now retired.