MCC 4 year degree on track

[cougarnurse]

This is nice to know: MCC 4-year nursing degree plans on track - Local - Bradenton.com

MANATEE — State officials have agreed to push back a deadline that could have delayed the start of a proposed new four-year nursing degree program at Manatee Community College until 2011.

The state agreed to “re-set” the deadline for review of Manatee Community College’s proposed Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree program, officials said late Tuesday.

The result is that the new nursing program could stay on schedule to start as soon as 2010 instead of a year or more later.

A letter from Willis N. Holcombe, chancellor of the state Division of Community Colleges, notified MCC that the state had agreed to start a review in January of the proposed program outside the typical start date, which would have been Sept. 1, 2009.

Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith approved the plan “because of the strong local support for this initative and your stated reasons for not being able to comply with the usual deadline dates,” the letter said.

“It’s great for this community,” said a jubilant Lars A. Hafner, MCC’s newly installed president. “This is very exciting and keeps us on our timetable of enrolling our first students in January 2010.”

State officials will now take 90 days to gather community opinion, among other things, with the college’s proposal slated to go for approval before the state board in March, officials said. MCC officials had originally hoped the state board could consider its proposal in January. But MCC missed a June deadline requiring it to file a letter of intent, officials said.

Members of the Manatee and Sarasota legislative delegations appealed to the state to fix the glitch, arguing that MCC had missed it because it was in the midst of hiring a new president and had met all but the most technical of the state’s requirements.

“It is a step forward and at the same time, we still need to pursue a legislative fix so this type of fix is available across the board, so you don’t have to carve out special exceptions but can address it across the board,” said Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton. “Let schools apply as they want to come on-line.”

The state set up a special procedure in order to thoroughly analyze every program it accepted so its standards would be met by the two-year institutions, Galvano explained.

“It is a new function for them,” he noted.

“It certainly is a positive for Manatee, and for our community as a whole,” Galvano said. However, he pledged to continue to work with state officials to further address the issue “so we don’t run into problems like this again anywhere else in the state.”

MCC will probably start with 50-75 students, with the number “snowballing” each semester, Hafner said.

An assessment the college did on the proposal showed more than 550 people wanted to apply or enroll in the program, with 254 indicating they would be ready to start immediately, Hafner said.

“It showed a tremendous need in the two-county area,” he said.

The new degree program could be located on any of the college’s three campuses — in Bradenton, Lakewood Ranch or Venice — or even at a local hospital, he added.

“We will have lots of options,” he said.

The Sarasota legislative delegation earlier this month sent a letter to Smith requesting a review of MCC’s efforts to institute the new program, calling for “immediate action,” according to a copy of the letter supplied by the delegation’s chairman, state Rep. Ron Reagan, R-Bradenton.

“The delegation, along with the Manatee Community College District Board of Trustees, urges you to review the proposal for inclusion in your recommendations to the State Board of Education in January 2009,” it read. “We urge you to waive the department’s timetable and expedite the review of this program. To delay the review based on a procedural technicality would deprive the region of a much-needed program until at least 2011.”

In June, the college was still in the process of hiring Hafner, who July 1 succeeded retiring President Sarah H. Pappas.

College officials did not want to commit to the new degree program until Hafner took office, officials explained.

The college’s board notified the state in September of its intention to launch the program.

Pappas said Tuesday she had not been part of the process, but added, “I just know health care workers are very much in demand.”

“These jobs are sure needed now and in the future,” said Pappas, who is president-elect of The William G. and Marie Selby Foundation, a private, independent entity that supports the capital needs of nonprofit organizations in Sarasota, Manatee, Charlotte and DeSoto counties.

[Robert F]

Wow! This is excellent. I have never known of a community college to host a 4 year degree program in anything other than Teaching(2+2 Program). Are there any more community colleges in the US doing this that you are aware of?