http://yankton.net/articles/2012/06/19/community/doc4fdfefef7b9f6563698500.txt

 

Mount Marty Officials Happy With Accreditation

By Andrew Atwal
andrew.atwal@yankton.net

Officials at Mount Marty College are pleased that the nursing program recently received a new 10-year accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). The last time the program was accredited, it was only given a five-year accreditation in 2007.

Dr. Joseph Benoit, president of Mount Marty, was happy when he heard the news about the new accreditation.

“A 10-year accreditation is incredible for us,” he said. “It is nice when accreditors come to town and affirm the program.”

He added that the faculty in the nursing department have been unusually busy this past year— not only did they gain accreditation, they also began the licensed practical nurse program and the masters program.

The Commission reviewed the nursing bachelors program over a three-day period in November 2011.

However, college officials began preparing for the CCNE’s arrival in fall 2010. Faculty in the nursing program conducted a year-long self-study of the program and made sure all the documents were in place for when they arrived.

As part of the three-day process, the commission interviewed all department administrators and Dr. Benoit, toured facilities available to students, looked at the library, spent time with the MMC advisory committee, talked to faculty members and also toured the clinical facilities.

Accreditation is based on the standards set by the CCNE, which include faculty development, facility review, and the technology available for students and faculty, among others.

It took the commission six months before finally passing down the 10-year accreditation, which will run through June 2022.

Dr. Jacqueline Kelley, director of graduate nursing and the MMC nursing division chair for the review process, said, “The 10-year accreditation is a reward for our hard work.”

Even though she led the committee for the review process, she said she had a strong faculty behind her.

“Because we’re a good program, the accreditation commission gave us a 10-year renewal,” she said. “However, reviewing our program is an ongoing process, and not just because the commission is coming.”

Vice President and Dean of Academic Affairs Robert Tereshinski echoed similar beliefs.

“What we’ve done in the past year really affirms that we have the credibility in the region for nursing,” he said.

“It was quite a surprise to me that they achieved everything goal-wise they set out to do this year,” Tereshinski said.

She noted that the program has consistently been accredited, even in its early days when accreditation was done through the National League of Nursing.

In regards to the new 10-year accreditation renewal, Dr. Benoit said, “This was the best seal of approval we could get on our program from an outside agency.”

However, while some things remain the same with the nursing program, others are changing.

Effective Aug. 1, Kelley will be the director of the graduate nursing program. Shelly Luger will fill Kelley’s current position of the nursing chair and director of undergraduate nursing programs.

The reason for the change, Kelley said, was because of the increased numbers of students enrolled in the program. In 2005, there were 78 students in the program, compared with more than 200 this year.

In the new position Kelley hopes to achieve accreditation for the school’s masters of science in nursing (MSN) program.

The first MSN class graduates in December 2013, with the commission coming to review the program shortly after that.

Overall, Benoit said that despite the high remarks from the CCNE, there is still room for improvement within the nursing program.

“We can take an excellent program and move it to an even higher level,” he said.

One of those major steps is implementation of a doctorate nursing program, which is slated to began in 2014 in Sioux Falls and either 2014 or 2015 in Yankton.

Another improvement includes the science renovations on the Yankton campus. Benoit said he hopes the construction renovations can begin in the fall, and expects it to be about a year-long project. After the renovations are complete, the second phase is to relocate the nursing school into another Yankton campus building, and have better space for a patient simulation area. Costs of the improvements are about $2 million for the science renovations and about $1 million for the nursing improvements.

You can follow Andrew Atwal on Twitter at www.twitter.com/andrewatwal