Nursing
This program provides the education necessary for becoming a
registered professional nurse. It prepares the student to take
the NCLEX examination (state board licensure test) for RN.
Philosophy
The goal of the Bachelor of Science degree in nursing program is
to provide opportunities for qualified students to acquire the
knowledge necessary to provide nursing care, which promotes
adaptation of the person, family, and community. This knowledge
is acquired within a liberal arts experience, which emphasizes
honesty, integrity, civility, and a strong sense of personal
responsibility. Professional preparation as a nurse includes
promotion of lifelong learning, social responsibility, and
service.
The faculty believes persons are unique, holistic, and
developing beings with the process and capacity for thinking,
feeling, reflecting and choosing. Persons respond to and act
upon the constantly changing environment, which is everything
that is within and around them. To adapt to this changing
environment, people use coping processes, which are both innate
and learned. Adaptation occurs as adaptive responses promote
integrity and wholeness.
Health is a state and a process of being and becoming an
integrated and whole person. Health is a continuum ranging from
peak wellness to death. The adaptation level is that point where
the person is able to respond positively. A whole person is one
with the highest possible fulfillment of human potential.
Nursing assists persons, families, and communities to examine
life and environmental patterns, attach personal meaning to
these patterns and choose adaptation. Nursing acts to enhance
interaction with the environment by promoting meaningful life
experiences, growth, and adaptation. The profession of nursing
is an integrated part of a system for health care delivery and
shares responsibility for working collaboratively with other
health care practitioners.
Nursing education is a process, which enables the learner to
synthesize a body of knowledge obtained through courses in
nursing, liberal arts, humanities, and the sciences. Because
nursing is dynamic, the education is foundational for
professional growth through nursing research and continuing
education.
The faculty believe that the learner is best able to reach
individual potential in an environment that is nurturing and
promotes inquiry, dialogue, curiosity, creativity, the ethical
ideal, and assertiveness. The learner brings an attitude of
commitment and motivation for achievement. The role of the
learner is to share in the responsibility of the
teaching-learning process.
The teacher interacts with students as persons of worth,
dignity, intelligence, and high scholarly standards. The
teacher's role is to provide the climate, structure, and
dialogue that promote discovery of patterns and paradigms for
practice. The teacher raises questions that require reading,
observation, analysis, and reflection upon patient care. The
teacher nurtures the learner, is available for dialogue, and
promotes the use of research and critical thinking in the
delivery of nursing care.
