Hiram's nursing students get much more than just a major
Talking to the nursing director, you would think that Hiram College has always offered a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. While the program is young – it received its approval by the Ohio Board of Nursing and Ohio Board of Regents barely one year ago – it forges full-speed ahead, and fully embraces the Hiram culture.
The program is “incredible,” says Nursing Program Director Davina Gosnell. “I am just amazed.”
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Nursing Class of 2011 |
Gosnell has reasons to be impressed. She set a goal of enrolling 25 new students for the program’s inaugural year. This represented a lofty ambition for a new program without faculty and facilities in place at the time. It turned out to be too conservative, as 37 students enrolled in the fall of 2007. To date, Hiram College had received more than 100 applications to fill 35-40 spots in the fall 2008 class.
Destined for success
When asked what makes Hiram the ideal learning environment for growing a nursing program so quickly with such broad appeal, Gosnell has a simple answer: the people.
“Hiram has an incredible reputation,” she says. “I’ve lived just down the road for 20-plus years, and I have not met a single person who has had anything bad to say about Hiram.”
As Kent State University’s nursing Dean, Gosnell gained extensive experience leading a successful nursing program for a public university. Yet, for all this experience and success, she was not prepared for the intensity and responsiveness of a small college community.
Hiram’s nursing program garnered widespread support from the campus. So when Gosnell needed help, invariably several people would be ready and willing to contribute. Designing the curriculum, creating new courses, submitting documentation to the Ohio Board of Nursing and the Ohio Board of Regents, and recruiting the very first class of nursing students was a cooperative and collaborative endeavor – and that cooperation continues, Gosnell says.
Intimate learning
Hiram attracts a particular kind of nursing student. “They come here first because they want Hiram,” says Gosnell. Hiram attracts students who seek a residential liberal arts college experience, and who also want to major in nursing.
Nursing students are fully immersed in the Hiram campus and curriculum. For example, nursing majors take the same first-year course sequence as all new students, rather than a segregated nursing track. Their first-year colloquium professors are their initial academic advisors. Not until students officially declare their nursing major at the end of their second semester are they assigned advisors within nursing. This way, according to Gosnell, nursing students interact with faculty and students of diverse backgrounds and interests, and connect with the campus just as any other Hiram student would.
So far, the approach is working. Of the 37 students in the first class, only seven are leaving the program, some of whom opted for a different major at Hiram. Four new students are transferring into the sophomore year of the nursing program. The strong retention rate is encouraging to Gosnell.
The intimate connection between nursing students and the campus at large is expected to continue for each student’s four years. The curriculum is designed so that nursing students are not segregated from other students, even as they enter upper-level nursing courses.
Global reach
Because of the global scope of health and the healthcare industry, nursing students at Hiram are required to complete an intensive “global health and nursing issues” course to graduate.
Among the most distinctive features of the nursing degree program, which sets it apart from other BSN programs, is an optional 3-week study abroad experience built into each student’s senior year schedule to fulfill this requirement. For those who choose to study abroad, Hiram is examining faculty-led trips to potential destinations such as Zambia or Costa Rica.
Hiram has an exceptionally strong off-campus study program, with nearly half of all students participating in a study abroad trip during their four years at Hiram. Recognizing the huge mutually beneficial experiences possible, Gosnell is asking faculty from all academic disciplines to team up with nursing faculty for study abroad.
Excellence abounds
On campus, Hiram’s Centers of Excellence provide nursing students with venues to expand on their nursing education, and consolidate it with other topics. Each center encourages interdisciplinary learning and attracts experts from many disciplines to campus for convocations. This affords all Hiram students with unique and exciting learning opportunities.
Nursing students will combine nursing with a minor in biomedical humanities. The Center for Literature, Medicine, and Biomedical Humanities, which examines health care issues through the lens of the humanities, is a natural fit. The Center’s cofounders are editors of the Literature and Medicine series at the Kent State University Press, which published The Poetry of Nursing, an American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award winner.
Nursing students will be exposed to the Center for Deciphering Life’s Languages through a course in human genetics. The Center for the Study of Ethics and Values, with its ethics-across-the-college effort, and the Garfield Society, through its focus on leadership and public policy, directly enhance the learning experience for nursing students at Hiram College.
A student who wants to combine an interest in athletics with his or her nursing studies might minor in exercise and sport science. This would uniquely prepare that student for a career in sports medicine, exercise physiology, or a range of other sports-related careers.
As with all other majors at Hiram, students enrolled in the nursing program immerse themselves in the core and required courses, but can further customize their individual educational programs to meet their needs and interests. The possibilities to integrate other academic interests with nursing abound, and this is what sets Hiram’s program apart.
It’s a true interdisciplinary program, which is one of the valuable features of a Hiram education.