Nursing

Program Overview

In the tradition of the College of Saint Elizabeth (CSE), the nursing program is committed to educating registered nurses to become leaders prepared to care for others through scholarship and critical inquiry. The nursing program fosters the development of leadership in students in a spirit of service and social responsibility to others. The nursing program prepares nurses to promote, maintain and restore health to patients in a variety of settings. The nursing program prepares students for continued lifelong learning.

The Program is designed to enable students to study on a part-time basis. Full-time study is available depending upon individual academic needs.

In addition to the classes on campus at the College of Saint Elizabeth, the program is offered at several off campus sites:

• Atlantic Health System
• Hackensack University Medical Center
• St. Clare's Medical Center, Dover
• St. Joseph Hospital, Paterson
• St. Mary's Hospital Passaic
• Trinitas Hospital/Union County College

Most courses are generally scheduled in seven week sessions, and classes meet just once a week. Accelerated format requires independent work outside of class (Integrated Learning). Clinical work supplements class time and is selected by students in collaboration with supportive faculty to meet their educational and professional needs. Ordinarily a candidate for a degree must attend the College of Saint Elizabeth for the equivalent of three years of study. All of the nursing courses can be taken through part-time study and most are offered in an accelerated format. A accelerated full-time option is also available on the CSE main campus.

The Nursing Program is approved by the New Jersey Board of Nursing (124 Halsey Street, Newark, NJ 07102, 973-504-6430 and accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc. 3343 Peachtree Road, Suite 850, Atlanta, GA 30326, 404-975-5000.

Flowing from the mission of the College of Saint Elizabeth, the mission of the Nursing Program is to be a community of learning in the Catholic liberal arts tradition for registered nurses of diverse ages, backgrounds, and cultures. The Program is committed to scholarship and critical inquiry. It strives to foster just and ethical relations and the promotion of nurses as full partners in the health care delivery system and society. The Nursing Program promotes a caring, personal environment where students learn by example as well as by participation to develop their leadership abilities in a spirit of service and social responsibility to others. Within this environment, students become sensitive and responsive to local and global health care concerns.

Outcomes

Graduates of the undergraduate RN-BSN program in nursing are prepared to:

• Integrate knowledge from the liberal arts and sciences into professional nursing practice.
• Demonstrate global awareness and culturally sensitive behaviors that create an environment of respect for the dignity of patients, families and others.
• Utilize interprofessional and intraprofessional methods of culturally sensitive communication to collaborate effectively in delivering safe patient care throughout the lifespan in a variety of settings.
• Articulate a philosophy of nursing that guides one's practice as a leader, researcher, manager and provider of care.
• Utilize data, knowledge and technology effectively and ethically to achieve desired patient outcomes.
• Integrate scholarly inquiry and research into evidence-based practice.
• Perform competently and ethically to promote, maintain and restore health in communities, regions and populations.
• Integrate an understanding of health care policies, including financial and regulatory, into professional nursing practice.
• Assume a professional nursing leadership role that promotes quality nursing practice in the delivery of health services.
• Accept responsibility for lifelong learning to maintain up-to-date professional skills.

Graduates of the graduate MSN nurses are prepared to be socialized into the educator role in which they will:

• Integrate advanced knowledge from nursing and related disciplines into the nurse educator role.
• Employ a variety of evolving technologies and modalities in the classroom and clinical setting to facilitate student/client learning
• Apply research findings in the development of evidence-based nursing practice.
• Design, analyze, implement and evaluate nursing curricula, clinical teaching and outcomes of educational programs using extant literature, research, theories, models and ethical and legal principles.
• Synthesize selected theories of teaching and learning grounded in educational theory and evidence-based teaching practices to prepare graduates for practice in a complex, dynamic health care environment.
• Promulgate research findings in the development of evidence-based nursing practice.
• Analyze trends and issues in nursing and health care, and exercise leadership in creating a preferred future for nursing education and practice.
• Integrate spiritual, social and ethical values and beliefs in the construction of a personal philosophy as a nurse educator.
• Design, implement and evaluate strategies that recognize the multicultural, gender and experiential influences on teaching and learning.
• Utilize knowledge and skills in the pursuit of doctoral study.

Graduates

Our graduates are prepared as professional nurse generalists and leaders at the baccalaureate level providing a solid foundation for graduate study in nursing. Many of our graduates go on to receive their Master's Degree in nursing or related fields and others continue on for their doctorate. Our graduates have gone on to receive higher degrees from such places as:

• Neumann College
• New York University
• University of Pennsylvania
• Rutgers University
• Seton Hall University
• Villanova University

And can continue their graduate studies in nursing education at CSE. Many of our graduates have gone on for their graduate degree and have returned to teach at CSE as adjunct professors.