The
College collaborates with other colleges
in a consortium arrangement. The College
has joined with Haywood Community College
and Tri-County Community to form the Region
A Nursing Consortium to provide course work
leading to an Associate of Applied Sciences
in Nursing degree (10).
The 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 College has been a member
of the consortium for over 20 years.
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 (10).
In this relationship students register at
their home institution for all course work
regardless of the campus on which it is
taught. Full-time equivalent (FTE) funding
is earned by the college registering the
student. All courses taken by a student
admitted to the College 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 (11).
The
design of the consortium agreement allows
for thorough involvement from all three
member colleges throughout the program of
study. 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 consortium 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 (12).
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
also meet at least once each semester to
discuss all aspects of program development,
administration, instruction and evaluation.
In fall of 2005 the two groups, the Steering
Committee and the Consortium Faculty Committee,
held a joint meeting (13).
Faculty also work in subcommittees on activities
such as revision of course syllabi (14).
In
this consortium relationship 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. The results of these surveys
are reviewed as part of the annual program
audit and used to ensure quality and compliance
of curriculum coursework. In the 2004 annual
program review (15)
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. 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.
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.
Compliance
Partial
Compliance