By Norm Miller, LC News
PINEVILLE (LCNews) — In a letter received this week by Louisiana College, the Louisiana State Board of Nursing re-instated full approval status upon LC’s Nursing Program pursuant to a decision reached at the LSBN’s February meeting.
Last year the LSBN placed the College on probation because the 2016 NCLEX-RN licensure examination pass rate fell below the required 80 percent.
“We are grateful for our commendable faculty and committed students for their hard work and studious efforts during the last year to regain what was lost,” said Marilyn Cooksey, Dean of the Rife and Carolyn Saunders Nursing program at LC. “We remain confident that our proposed measures initiated last year to remediate this matter will continue to improve our test scores and the competency of Nursing skills among our students.”
“A year ago, we employed several strategies and solutions in response to this matter,” said LC President Rick Brewer. “It looks like we had the right approach and right people. The LSBN allotted three years to alleviate the problem, and Dr. Cooksey and her staff resolved it in one.”
General solutions proposed a year ago were increased rigor and the elevation of test and grading methods.
Specific remedies were:
– Increase the percentage of final course grades derived from course examinations to a minimum of 75 percent from the previous 60 percent range.
– Discontinue using test bank questions.
– Discontinue using duplicate questions from previous tests on the final exam.
– Change HESI proctored exams from custom exams based on course syllabi to national exams for comparing student performance.
– Incorporate an on-campus HURST review into the curriculum. The HURST Review takes a different, but complementary approach to cementing the nursing content presented in nursing school.
Last year’s probation notification came just weeks after LC received a grant from The Rapides Foundation of $65,000 to assist in the remediation of Nursing students. The grant was part of a project funded in part by a Healthcare Occupations Program Grant from The Rapides Foundation.
“Community partnerships are an integral part of Louisiana College’s success,” Brewer said. “My gratitude for The Rapides Foundation, as well as Dr. Cooksey, the Nursing faculty, and our students runs deep. This success exemplifies what can be achieved when everyone is pulling in the same direction.”
