The Associate in Arts (AA) degree is typical of a degree program in which the College provides all instruction. In the attached worksheet, all course requirements for an AA degree are matched to courses taught by College faculty during spring semester 2006 (2). This example illustrates that instruction for the entire AA degree program is provided by the College.

The Nursing Associate Degree program is the only program in which the College does not provide instruction for all course work (3). The college has been a member of a three-college consortium to provide course work leading to an Associate in Applied Sciences in Nursing Degree for over 20 years. The member colleges – Haywood Community College, Tri-County Community College and Southwestern Community College – are all regionally accredited institutions. The Region A Nursing Consortium allows member colleges to attract and share qualified nursing faculty in a discipline that is often difficult to staff. Further, clinical sites/resources are shared among the consortium members so that all Nursing Associate Degree students in western North Carolina are exposed to aspects of patient care that may not be readily available in their local college service areas.

The North Carolina Board of Nursing has approved the Nursing Associate Degree program offered through this consortium. The Board of Nursing monitors nursing degree programs for consistency of nursing curricula among colleges.

The consortium articulation agreement outlines each college’s involvement and responsibility for the development, implementation and control of all aspects of the educational program to ensure quality instruction (4). In this relationship students register at their home institution for all course work regardless of the campus on which it is taught. All full-time equivalent (FTE) budget funding is earned by the college registering the student. All courses taken by a student admitted to Southwestern in the nursing curriculum are considered Southwestern-offered courses, regardless of which campus the instruction occurred, for completion of the Associate of Applied Sciences degree (5).

The design of the consortium agreement allows for thorough involvement from all three member colleges throughout the program of study (4). All courses in the first two semesters are defined in the consortium agreement as Level I courses and are taught at each institution. Level II courses occur in semesters three through five or six and may be taught on any one of the member colleges’ campuses. These courses are highlighted in blue in the supporting documentation (2).

All three colleges jointly assume financial responsibility for the cost of operations for the second year, level II, of the program. The administrative offices and program director are housed on Haywood Community College’s campus. All member colleges are involved in the hiring and evaluation of the program director.

The Chief Academic Officer from each member college serves on an active steering committee for oversight of the program. This committee meets a minimum of once each semester. Faculty routinely meet to discuss all aspects of program development, administration, instruction and evaluation. In fall 2005, the Steering Committee and the Consortium Faculty Committee held a joint meeting (6). Faculty also work in subcommittees on activities such as revision of course syllabi (7).

The program is evaluated each year for effectiveness and quality of instruction through an annual program review process. As a part of this process all graduates and employers of graduates are surveyed. In the 2004 annual program review (8)
100% of graduate respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the quality of instruction in program area courses in both the first and the second year of the academic program and in the overall quality of the academic program. One hundred percent (100%) of employers who completed the survey were very satisfied with the overall quality of the employee’s (graduate’s) entry level skills.

The performance of graduates on the licensing exam with the Board of Nursing provides an additional indicator of program effectiveness of the nursing degree consortium. From 2001-2005, the performance of the College’s nursing graduates on the state licensing exam exceeded the standard established through the North Carolina Community College Performance Measure for licensing exam results (9, 10, 11, 12, 13).