Nursing rallies at NCCU

Student support among changes

DURHAM -- A year after being forced to limit its enrollment due to poor performance by its graduates on the state's professional licensure exam, N.C. Central University's nursing program has rebounded impressively.

In 2007, 91 percent of NCCU's nursing program graduates passed the state exam, a nine-point improvement over the prior year. It was the first time in six years that NCCU's nursing graduates had reached the UNC system's 85 percent passage rate benchmark.

Last year, the program's enrollment was docked 15 percent -- or about 18 students -- under a rule punishing UNC-system campuses whose nursing graduates don't hit the system's 85 percent passage standard two years in a row. That meant that this year it enrolled 18 fewer students than its 125-student maximum, a ceiling set by the state Board of Nursing.

The reduction was a blow to a program charged by the UNC system with doubling its number of graduates by 2010. But even last year, there were signs of a renaissance. The 82 percent passage rate in 2006 was an improvement over the 65 percent rate the prior year. The state board requires a 75 percent passage rate.

Lorna Harris, the program's director, attributed the improvement in part to a series of changes within the program, including a new emphasis on advising, the creation in 2006 of a student support office and a change in admissions policy requiring applicants to have a 2.5 grade point average in the sciences.

"It's good news, and I attribute it to hard work on the part of the faculty and the students," Harris said. "Now we hope to aggressively recruit students to our program."

Its enrollment shackles now off, the program has high hopes: a plan to continue adding students and faculty in the hopes of becoming a full-fledged professional school, Harris said.

According to the state board, 39 of 43 NCCU students passed the exam, accounting for the 91 percent passage rate. Durham Technical Community College's nursing grads posted a 93 percent passage rate; at UNC-Chapel Hill, 93 percent passed, and at the Watts School of Nursing in Durham, 96 percent passed. Ninety percent of Duke's nursing grads passed the exam, according to the same data.