TWU Nursing Program Receives Dramatic Enrollment Growth Funding

2/6/04

DENTON — For the third consecutive year, the Texas Woman’s University College of Nursing has received dramatic enrollment growth funding. This year TWU will receive $222,205, bringing its three-year total to more than $1.8 million.

Senate Bill 572 offers several incentives to undergraduate nursing programs for retaining and enrolling more students. Among its provisions is one making available additional formula funding to programs that increase upper-level student credit hours by more than 3 percent from fall 2002 to fall 2003. TWU student credit hours increased by 10 percent — from 8,250 to 9,090 — during that period.

“We’re thrilled,” said Dr. Lucille Travis, interim dean of the TWU College of Nursing. “The funding will help TWU continue to produce the state’s top new nursing graduates.”

The TWU College of Nursing, celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2004, is the largest nursing program in the state with nearly 2,200 undergraduate and graduate students.

“TWU is dedicated to addressing Texas’ nursing shortage by preparing more nurses to enter the workforce,” said TWU Chancellor Dr. Ann Stuart. “In order to prepare more new nurses, the university has added faculty partially as a result of funding made available through SB 572. We also have initiated programs to attract new students, retain current students and train new nursing instructors. Our nursing program continues to have more applicants than the number of students we are able to admit.”

TWU has added six new teaching positions in the College of Nursing since 2000 to accommodate new upper-level students, juniors who have already completed two years of core class instruction and are ready to begin intensive nursing instruction and clinicals.

Recent programs launched by the TWU College of Nursing include the Patient Simulation Laboratory Retention Project for senior-level undergraduate students who are at risk for dropping out because of a learning anxiety while interacting with patients. The students work with high-tech patient simulators to build their confidence, expand their knowledge and solidify their critical thinking skills. A variety of true-to-life scenarios — from heart attacks to giving birth — can be created using the patient simulators.

An accelerated degree program at TWU allows professionals who already have an undergraduate or graduate degree in a field other than nursing to earn a bachelor of science degree in nursing in as little as 13 months. The intensive undergraduate program, the first in the state, is offered on TWU’s Houston campus.

TWU’s Nurse Educator Web-Technology Outreach Network is designed to train nurses to become nursing instructors primarily through online courses. Nurses who want to teach can complete nearly two-thirds of their master’s or doctoral degrees, as well as post-master’s studies, online at TWU. Training more nursing instructors to teach undergraduate nursing students is a critical element to solving the nursing shortage. Nursing schools and colleges turn away hundreds of students each year because they do not have faculty to teach all the students who apply.

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For Further Information Contact:

Roy Kron
Director of News and Information
Tel: (940) 898-3456
e-mail: rkron@twu.edu