Nursing department stays optimistic about hiring among student’s concerns

After facing staffing changes for the past two years, the Truman State University nursing program is currently seeking to fill two faculty positions. Faculty members are optimistic about the process, while students have been wary about the state of the program. 

Throughout the cohorts, students have been concerned about the status of the nursing program’s accreditation. Students believed that the program would have its accreditation revoked due to a perceived lack of sufficient staffing. Sophomore nursing student Gavin Ralston said that because of the rumors, students within his nursing cohort started to panic about having to find a new school.    

Ralston said he thinks the nursing program is struggling right now. He said for sophomores in the program, things feel very scrambled because they haven’t had a lab in their assessments and fundamentals class for weeks.

“Our cohort is just kind of waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel because we know it gets better, and we’re all just frustrated about how everything’s been going,” Ralston said.

Lance Ratcliff, the associate dean for the School of Business and Professional Studies at the University, said by next spring he anticipates additional faculty will be working in the nursing department. This will be in time for the state board to return for its review of the program. Ratcliff said the nursing program is approved by the state board of nursing and accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the national accrediting body.

The CCNE comes every ten years to review the program. Ratcliff said the nursing program at the University got reaccredited for the next ten years in 2023, and that the CCNE will be back in 2033.

The state board generally comes every five years. Ratcliff said the state board visited last year and wanted to follow up this year to see updates on the program, such as progress on filling positions, how the students are doing, and how the program itself is doing.

“Unfortunately, we had a faculty member pass away,” Ratcliff said. “We had a couple resign. One [faculty member’s] husband got a job so they moved and we had a retirement. So the state board is probably just going to check in with us in the spring.”

Ratcliff said he thinks the state board’s return to the school might be where students are getting the idea that the program might be in danger of having its accreditation revoked. Jared Young, the University’s director of academic affairs operations, said in terms of the number of faculty the nursing program plans to have versus what it currently has, the program is understaffed. Young said staffing plans need to be finalized and reviewed by the Board of Governors in the spring semester.

“If a resignation, or a retirement, or any other event that creates a change in staffing happens between that time and the time school starts in August, that means that we’re going to have to figure something out in order to cover classes,” Young said. “We had that happen in the nursing department this summer … and we had that happen the year before as well.”

In cases when insufficient staffing complicates the staffing plan, Young said there are two options. One option is to see if a faculty member in the department can add a class to their workload, and the other is to hire an adjunct professor from outside the University with experience needed to teach the course.

The nursing program is already starting to fill positions. Ratcliff said the nursing program made a hire a few months ago, and he is optimistic that the searches for faculty are going to go well. The positions were posted Oct. 7.