North Carolina to Monitor Winston-Salem State's Nursing Program

Black Issues in Higher Education, Feb 18, 1999

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- State officials will again monitor the nursing program at Winston-Salem State University (WSSU) after students posted low passing rates on state exams.

Ninety of 121 students at Winston-Salem State who took the test last year passed, giving the school a passing rate of 74 percent. That is the lowest rating among the nine schools in the University of North Carolina (UNC) system that offer bachelor's degrees in nursing.

It is also the lowest rating for the school since 1990, when the state threatened to close the program because of poor performance and low enrollment. That year, 14 of 20 students -- or 70 percent -- passed the competency exam used to license nurses in the state.

The system typically monitors and offers advice to programs with passing rates lower than 85 percent, says Donna Benson, an associate vice president of academic affairs for the UNC system, which has recommended that the school reduce the number of students admitted to the program.

Dr. Lee Hampton, the vice chancellor for university advancement and a spokesman for the university, says school administrators already had reduced enrollment to 188 students at the beginning of this academic year. Last year's enrollment of 294 students was the largest in the school's history and almost three times the 1990 enrollment. The increase was spurred by a need for nurses at Baptist Hospital and Forsyth Memorial Hospital, Hampton and Benson say.

WSSU will consider adding faculty before it increases its enrollment again, Hampton says.