By TAYLOR MORRIS, Student Reporter
Northwestern Oklahoma State University received approval on Jan. 30 to off the Doctor of Nursing practice program.
According to President Dr. Janet Cunningham, the university received notification from the Higher Learning Commission on Jan. 30, that its Institutional Actions Council approved the university’s request to offer the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program.
This is the first doctorate degree that the university has ever offered.
Associate professor of nursing Dr. Shelly Wells said, the Doctor of Nursing program is a program designed to take nurses that are already Bachelor’s degree prepared and teach them to be primary care providers in their regions of the state. Moreover, the program allows Northwestern to help address a need that has been identified in the rural parts of Oklahoma.
The overall approval process was not an easy task for the nursing department, however. According to Wells, “We were only approved to offer undergraduate degrees and some master degrees, so when you introduce a doctorate into the mix Northwestern had to be evaluated.” Wells said that the approval process was multifaceted as it had to be approved by the State Regents for Higher Education and it had to be approved by the Oklahoma Board of Nursing and then the Higher Learning Commission.
The Higher Learning Commission is an organization tasked with ensuring universities and colleges are meeting federal standards.
Wells said sight visitors came to the university to confirm that Northwestern had the infrastructure in place to be able to support a doctoral education program. She added, these visitors met with people in the J.W. Martin library to ensure that it was sufficient; they checked that Northwestern’s financial aid program was intact and that the university was doing everything possible to ensure that the program would be a success by having all the functional pieces to make it work.
“It was a very carefully designed curriculum and that curriculum went out and had external reviews look and offer feedback to make sure it was a sound a worthwhile curriculum,” Wells said. “We had to demonstrate a need for such a program in the state and we had to demonstrate there was a need for family nurse practitioners.”
It took a year to get the approval of the Higher Learner Commission and now the program can begin taking students as early as August of this year.
According to both Cunningham and Wells, a lot of thanks and appreciation goes to Charles Morton Share Foundation and the Wisdom Family Foundation for their generous donations to the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program. The program will be financially sufficient in the next three to four years and making money. “We are excited about the program. It truly gives Northwestern a place, it’s a star in our crown if you will,” Wells said.