Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing News

Frontier Nursing Service Quarterly Bulletin, Winter 2004 by Stone, Susan

This is an exciting time as we continue to make the transition to a fully accredited, degree-granting graduate school. We started the action phase of our transition to a graduate school in the year 2000 with the adoption of a 5 year plan that included thirteen strategic goals. The progress that we have made towards meeting these goals is unprecedented. I have taken the opportunity in this report to document and share our progress related to each strategic goal.

FSMFN Strategic Goals for 2000-2005

(Excerpts from the 2003 FSMFN President's Report)

Design, implement, evaluate and improve the revised graduate curriculum

In the year 2000, a major revision to the curriculum was completed. This was necessary to assure that the curriculum for the planned Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) degree met all of the criteria established for this degree by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS), the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), the American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM), the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculty (NONPF), and the National Certification Corporation for the Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing Specialties (NCC).

The programs currently meet all the criteria of these organizations. Additions to the curriculum included strengthening the women's health content for the Community-Based Family Nurse Practitioner Program (CFNP) and strengthening the primary care content for the Community-Based Nurse-Midwifery Education Program (CNEP). Two new courses were added to meet the needs of the MSN students for a background in theories and research. The new curriculum was implemented in the fall of 2000. During 2001, 2002 and 2003 the curriculum committee has been in an ongoing process of evaluation of each course and the outcomes of the entire curriculum. Courses have been revised based on student/graduate feedback and student learning outcomes. In the year 2003, we graduated our first class of MSN students. Seventeen students graduated on October 18, 2003 with a Master of Science in Nursing degree. Evaluation of the curriculum is ongoing as outlined in the annual strategic plan. There are currently 39 students enrolled in the MSN program. Results on the National Certification Exam remain greater than 97% in each year since 2000. This is one indicator that the new curriculum is effective.

Achieve Licensure and Accreditation from Appropriate Organizations

Licensure

In the year 2000 the FSMFN applied to the Kentucky Council on Post Secondary Education to include the Master of Science in Nursing degree in the areas of nurse-midwifery and family nurse-practitioner to our license. We received approval on October 17, 2000. We successfully added the Women Health Nurse Practitioner to our license on May 22, 2001.

Institutional Accreditation

During the year 2000, we actively began the process to achieve institutional accreditation through the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS). We attended a SACS orientation session in January of 1999 and again in January 2000. We attended our first annual SACS Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia in December 2000. We had much work to do in terms of the way our school was organized, the implementation of the new graduate curriculum and our institutional effectiveness process. In June 2001 we submitted our first application for Candidacy to SACS. In the fall of 2001, we received feedback from SACS and proceeded to rewrite our application. In February of 2002, we resubmitted our application. At the SACS annual meeting in December, 2002, we were notified that we had been approved for a candidacy site visit. We submitted an updated application to our site visitors in February of 2003. We hosted six site visitors from SACS at our school on March 17-19, 2003. In june of 2003, we were notified that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools had approved us as a Candidate. We were very proud and happy to have achieved this accomplishment, but we knew that there was much more to do.

We met with our SACS liaison in july of 2003 in Atlanta, Georgia to continue the path to full accreditation. We developed our leadership team and began the process of writing the SACS Compliance Document. We plan to complete and submit the Compliance Document of spring of 2004 and host a site visit in july 2004. Our goal is to achieve full accreditation from SACS in December 2004.

Program Accreditation

In February of 2002, knowing that we would need the approval of the American College of Nurse-Midwives Division of Accreditation to offer the MSN program to the CNEP students, we applied for a change of status. We received a change of status from a certificate program to a Master of Science in Nursing program in February of 2002.

We are currently preparing for full reaccreditation by the ACNM, which is scheduled for fall of 2004. We are deep into the process of writing the self-study and preparing for the fall 2004 site visit.

We are also pursuing accreditation through the National League for Nursing Accreditation Commission. This is necessary to operate the CFNP track and provides overall validity to the MSN program. This process also requires a self-study and a site visit planned for fall of 2004.