Seeking the cure - nursing program at South Carolina State University - special report: health sciences

Black Issues in Higher Education, Nov 28, 1996 by Linda L. Meggett

hoping that our class and the

class of 1998 do well. [Then] the school should have no

reason to close the program."

Although Whiting says, "We don't think what the

board did was wrong in terms of interpretation," she

feels that the board's interpretation was very narrow,

considering it's a relatively new program. "If you make

a change in a program, it takes four years to prove it

works."

If the appeal is denied, S.C. State administrators can

submit a proposal to start a new nursing program at a

later date. The proposal would then have to be approved

by the nursing board and the state's Commission

on Higher Education.

Helped Offered From Those Who Have Been There

S.C. State isn't the first HBCU to face closure of its

four-year nursing program. Three schools in North

Carolina faced the same dilemma in the late 1980s, but

those schools have rebounded and now consistently

score about the 90 percentile.

"I believe there should be a link up between successful

schools and those floundering," says Tucker-Allen. "I

don't know why they don't form coalitions."

In an effort to help S.C. State avoid closure, Dr.

Sylvia Flack, Winston-Salem State University's (WSSU)

Director of Nursing, spoke on behalf of the ailing

school. She told the board how her school fought

extinction in 1989 and volunteered to serve as a

consultant to S.C. State.

The threat to WSSU came from the North Carolina

Board of Governors, not the state nursing board, and the

first thing that the institution did was organize its nursing

alumni into a political force.

"We could not produce students in 1989 who could pass

and that's how I ended up here," admits Flack, a WSSU

nursing program alumna.

The program quickly began increasing enrollment. The

student population climbed from thirty to more than 174 in

the four-year program. The school also has 135 students in

the R.N.-to-Bachelor's in Science nursing program and five

outreach programs. Also, in collaboration with the

University of North Carolina-Charlotte, WSSU has started a

master's in nursing program.

"We had to get our board scores up to 85 percent and in

1990 we had to go above 90 percent. At this time, we can't

make under 90 percent two consecutive years," Flack says.

North Carolina's nursing board requires the school to stay

above 75 percent.

"It's not difficult if you have things working together--if

you have faculty who realize what they need to do, if you

have a strong curriculum, and you have students who are

willing to learn," advises Flack. "We have a strong retention

plan. We expect students to master a certain level. We teach

based on a philosophy that everybody can learn the same

thing, given the right amount of time."

But Flack acknowledges that Black students

traditionally do not score well on standardized tests. And

she insists that the problem is not content, suggesting that if

students are properly assessed and diligently guided through

the clinical requirements, 95 percent of them would pass.

"We literally work with them a week and give them a

test comparable to the state board. If they don't pass, they