Tanner, AL – The Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) visits accredited nursing programs every eight years and Calhoun Community College received a three-day visit starting on February 11, 2020. This is where they review the college’s records, verify their self-reported strengths and weaknesses, as well as talk to students.
On February 12, the ACEN held an anonymous “conversation and cookies” event with current nursing students to see how they felt about the program; this allowed for student feedback without documenting names. Mrs. Kim Sharp, the team chair for the ACEN visit from New York, and Dr. Paulina Marra-Powers, the dean for a small hospital-based program, were conducting the event. In attendance were 60 students, a mixture of both campuses as well as all levels of the nursing program.
Mrs. Sharp asked how students felt about clinical instructors and their assigned clinical facilities. “They make sure there are equal experiences at all facilities and allow for different opportunities”, stated a 3rd semester nursing student. Since all facilities have different patients with different needs, there are a variety of situations that students are able to help in.
“You will learn something, if you go in there wanting to learn something” another nursing student said. Highlighting a point made by Dr. Hogan during the nursing orientation on December 6, if you want to get something out of the program, you will get something out of it.
When asked about changes they felt needed to happen within the program, one student stated “All teachers should put notes on Black Board in the same way, it makes it difficult to keep a unified way of taking notes when they don’t.”
One student who transferred from another nursing program within the state concluded the conversation by stating “This program has treated me a lot better, and I’ve had better experiences with faculty. Here it is not so spread out, so you get to know each other, almost like being forced to become friends”.