Nursing graduation rates at TCU attract state grant

Fort Worth, TX

3/10/2009

By: Alexis Mladenoff, Daily Skiff

The Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences has been rewarded for its retention and graduation rates in 2008 with a $280,000 state grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. 

Paulette Burns, dean of the Harris College of Nursing and Health Sciences, said “Texas has been concerned with the shortage of nurses in the work force since 1998, and has been providing financial incentives to increase enrollment in nursing schools throughout the state.”

Burns continued, “The Texas Legislature approved funding for the Nursing Shortage Reduction Program to kick-start increasing enrollments and graduation in the nursing school programs in Texas. In 2007, 158 students graduated from the Harris College, whereas in 2008, the graduation total increased to 196.

The nursing school was awarded the same grant in 2005, 2006 and 2008. The only way for the nursing school to get more grant money would be to increase the number of graduates every year, she said.

In the past, the nursing school has used the grant to hire three additional faculty members and one retention specialist, or academic adviser, Burns said.

Because the nursing school can hire more faculty, a larger number of students can be admitted, Burns said. The school's retention program has also helped to graduate 90 percent of all admitted students, she said.

Dennis Cheek, gerontological nursing professor, said the grants have helped enrollment in his pharmacology and pathophisiology classes explode. He said when he came to the university in 2003, he had about 30 students in class. He now has 71 students enrolled in his sophomore pharmacology class.

Cheek said he works closely with other professors of first-semester clinical classes. He said the professors have become a great academic team, which helps better prepare students for graduation.

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