Great News from 2011

Ribbon Cutting of the MG and Lillie A. Johnson Patient Care Simulation Center

November 10th the Victoria Chamber of Commerce hosted the Ribbon-Cutting Ceremony for the MG and Lillie A. Johnson Patient Care Simulation Center!

It was a wonderful event! In attendance were community supporters, the Trustees from the Johnson Foundation, faculty, staff and students! Here is an email I received regarding the impact that the School of Nursing is making! Permission was given to share these thoughts.....

Kathryn:

On behalf of the Johnson Foundation, thank you for the tour of your new digs and for the very unnecessary gifts to the trustees. I would have been perfectly happy with the cookies.

I want to repeat what I mentioned to you last night at the dinner. One
of your students, the one with the young child on her hip, impressed me with her sincere, and frequent, expressions of appreciation for her scholarship funds. As trustees, we rarely have the opportunity to experience first hand, up close and personal, the impact of our decisions, especially as it relates to students. I saw that yesterday.
Polite thank you notes are certainly welcomed but yesterday I was profoundly moved by that young lady.

Your program and your students will continue to go far. We look forward to participating as best as we can in that journey.

Feel free to share this message with your students and faculty.


Jack

Dear Jack,

On behalf of the School of Nursing, the faculty, staff and students, our sincere thanks for the support given to us from the MG and Lillie A Johnson Foundation and board of trustees.

We are passionate about our work and our profession. Your support allows us to fulfill our vision of innovative nursing excellence...meeting dreams in your community!!

Sincerely,

Kathryn Tart
Kathryn Tart, EdD, RN
Founding Dean and Professor
School of Nursing

Our Silver Winner!!!

Congratulations to Dr. Ginger Blomstrom!

She received the Good Samaritan Foundation Silver Award for excellence in Teaching. Her husband, granddaugher, and nursing faculty colleagues joined her at the Hilton Americas Hotel for the event on September 15th!

Dr. Blomstrom received the award from 125 nominees! The UHV School of Nursing at Sugar Land is honored to have such a wonderful faculty member!

Welcome to the Fall 2011 semester!

Welcome to each of you to a new school year! I am looking forward to the opportunities we have in store for the School of Nursing! I am in awe of the accomplishments we have seen and the vision we have for the future. Our school has grown by 205% over the last four years!

The Future of Nursing Report that came out in October of 2010 gave 8 recommendations that will help guide our profession for the next decade.

Recommendation #4 is to: Increase the proportion of nurses with a baccalarueate degree to 80 percent by 2020. The School of Nursing's RN-BSN program now has seamless articulation agreements with Lone Star Community College System, Wharton County Junior College and The Victoria College. www.uhv.edu/nursing (click RN to BSN program). The ADN graduates from these programs can attend our UH System Cinco Ranch, UH System Sugar Land and UH Victoria campuses respectively.

If you want to know more about the report you can view it on-line at: www.iom.edu/reports/2010/The-Future-of-Nursing-Leading-Change-Advancing-Health.aspx It's our profession!!!

UHV Spring Nursing Forum to bring experts to address health care changes

Please click the link below to find out about the upcoming UHV Spring Nursing Forum in Victoria. Hope students and nurses come and find out about how the Institute of Medicine report and the Affordable Care Act will impact nursing's future! What a great way to start National Nurses Week!!

http://www.uhv.edu/car/newswire/release.asp?id=1121

UHV Nurses in Austin!

Nursing students in the RN-BSN and MSN programs attended Nurse's Day at the Capitol. The pictures were provided by Judy Jacob Mathew RN BSN (thanks!!). Comments I heard from students were: "I really understand how important the legislative process is for the nursing profession." "I have joined TNA now that I have been to Austin - I see how important the organization is to protecting my license." Thanks to Dr. Neill for heading up the experience!

Coffee with the Dean event

Eighty three (83) undergraduate and graduate students and alumni made it to the Coffee with the Dean in Cinco Ranch, Sugar Land and Victoria. We had a great time being together! Great questions, laughs and ideas along with some coffee and treats..... Our thanks to Mary Beth and the doctors at OGA for the great mugs and sponsoring our event!

I am looking forward to the next Coffee with the Dean in Victoria!!!

Spring Coffee with the Dean

UHV School of Nursing Spring Forum

87.5% of First Class taking NCLEX-RN exam are RNs!

87.5 percent of the first class of students taking the NCLEX-RN exam have passed. Despite this, the Texas Board of Nursing has placed the School of Nursing on warning status because the pass rate on initial testing in two consecutive reporting periods was below 80%. In August 2009 the SON graduated its first Second Degree BSN class of 17 students. The initial testing results were 77.78% (7 passed of the 9 testing) for the 2009 reporting period. The initial testing results were 28.57% (2 passed of the 7 testing) for the 2010 reporting period. The students were strongly encouraged to take the test in the 2009 reporting period, however, they did not. On April 5, 2010 a Self Study was submitted to the Texas Board of Nursing. The Self Study evaluated factors which contributed to graduates’ performance and included a description of corrective measures that were implemented. Major problems included inadequate admission criteria for the first cohort, nursing faculty who were new to BSN education and unprepared for the technological requirements, and the logistics of teaching a compressed curriculum. In September 2009 the University did not hold classes for three (3) weeks because of Hurricane Ike. This confounding event compressed this initial class even further. In all actuality the two year pass rate represents one class of 17 students. Currently, fourteen (14) total have passed the exam (5 after the second attempt), two (2) have not passed and one (1) student has not taken the NCLEX-RN exam. Thus, 87.5% of the first class of students taking the exam have passed. From our records 13 of these 14 Registered Nurses are working full time in nursing. Your faculty and dean are totally committed to the educational process in the SON. All good things take time and we are moving in a postive direction! Sincerely, Dr. Tart