$80k grant extends reach of Nursing's 2nd bachelor's degree program
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The School of Nursing has received an $80,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to boost enrollment of students from underrepresented or disadvantaged backgrounds to earn a second bachelor’s degree in nursing. Grant funding runs through the 2008-09 academic year.
The grant, part of a national initiative launched by the RWJF through its New Careers in Nursing Scholarship Program and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), aims to help alleviate the nation’s nursing shortage by dramatically expanding the pipeline of students in accelerated nursing programs.
The New Careers program will offer scholarships to eight applicants from underrepresented or financially disadvantaged groups to help them achieve the goal of becoming nurses without creating undue financial hardships on themselves or their families. The students will be recruited from the Amherst, Lowell and Dartmouth campuses, the Five Colleges, Baystate Medical Center programs and other local colleges.
Genevieve E. Chandler, associate professor of Nursing and project director, says this new program will be used to support the eight students in the You Can Be a Nurse project, a component of the school’s Second Bachelor’s Program. Chandler says that in just 17 months, the second bachelor’s degree program gives students the preparation necessary to take the state nursing licensure exam and begin professional nursing practice.
“This new initiative will be used for motivated students who already hold a bachelor’s degree in a field other than nursing,” Chandler says. “Our comprehensive program gives students a solid academic foundation and valuable clinical experience. As a result we graduate caring and compassionate practitioners with the knowledge, skills and leadership capabilities to advocate for their patients and promote health and healing across clinical settings and cultural boundaries.”
Chandler also notes that for the past 14 years, the success of the Second Bachelor’s Program at the School of Nursing has revolved around the creation of a learning environment which encourages students to use their diverse ethnic, racial and life experiences to enrich the learning process. The mix of experience and perspectives that students bring to the program provides valuable insights into caring for diverse patient populations and working within increasingly varied nursing workforce environments. It also contributes to bringing the voices of underrepresented populations into nursing scholarship to assure improved patient care beyond the single student’s practice and provides evidence for the advancement of culturally competent care.
The School of Nursing will recruit new faculty resources and provide mentoring and leadership development resources to ensure successful program completion by scholarship recipients.
“This program aims to safeguard the health of the nation by helping to ease the nurse and nursing faculty shortage,” said RWJF’s president, Risa Lavizzo-Mourey. “This new initiative also will advance our strategic goal of promoting leadership in the health professions.”
By bringing more nurses into the profession at the baccalaureate and master’s degree levels, the new scholarship program also helps to address the nation’s nursing faculty shortage. Data from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration show that nurses entering the profession at the baccalaureate level are four times more likely than other nurses to pursue a graduate degree in nursing, which is the required credential to teach.
According to the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice, diversifying the nursing profession is essential to meeting the health care needs of the nation and reducing health disparities that exist among many underserved populations. AACN serves as the National Program Office for this RWJF initiative and oversees the grant application submission and review processes.
More Information
New Careers in Nursing website
September 25, 2008.
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