President's Message

"It was the best of times. It was the worst of times." As we face the current budget woes and looming nursing faculty shortage, we need to remember what Dr. Lynn Wieck, President of TNA, says over and over - "It's a great time to be a nurse". Those of us who were lucky enough to be able to attend the T-OADN Annual meeting in Austin in February were inspired by Dr. Wieck and the keynote speaker, Beth Mancini. Ms. Mancini was able to create an atmosphere of enthusiasm and opportunity as she spoke on "Nursing - Where We Want To Be". Many thanks to the faculty and staff of Austin Community College and San Antonio College for a wonderful meeting. Chuck Swindoll said, "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations." Associate degree nursing has faced impossible situations before and we have survived and grown - for 50 years now - and we will continue to do so for many more.

At a time when community colleges were working to decide how and where to cut 7% from the current budget, many nursing programs were able to do more than their share to help the situation when they received dramatic growth funds from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for increased enrollments last fall. We need to capitalize on the opportunity before us to try to convince the state legislators to continue these dramatic growth funds as well as passing other nursing shortage bills that have been filed. Collectively we were able to increase enrollments but proposed budget cuts threaten to negate all of the progress we have made. Our efforts to increase recruitment and get the word out that it is a great time to be a nurse have worked. Applications have dramatically increased but many schools may have to actually decrease enrollments due to the budget. I was honored to represent T-OADN during Nurse Days at the Capital on March 4th and 5th. It was an awesome event to see so many nurses and nursing students descend on the capital. It was quite an education for me, the beginning of many opportunities in the weeks ahead as we strive to get nursing's legislative agenda passed. SB 718 by Madla and HB 2324 by McReynolds seek to improve the nurses' work environment. SB 1167 by Janek and HB 3126 by Truitt have been introduced to continue to increase nursing school enrollments. HB 1483 by Allen proposes to combine the RN and LVN boards. We will be monitoring these and quite a few other bills affecting nursing and taking action when needed.

At the N-OADN annual convention in Washington, D.C. last November, a resolution in honor of Mary Hardy, who passed away last July, was presented, recognizing her contributions to associate degree nursing. This resolution is included in this newsletter. T-OADN is also saddened by the sudden death of Janice Roberson and her colleague at McLennan Community College. Our prayers go to their families and the faculty and students of McLennan Community College as they face the loss of valued friends and employees who gave so much to the community college. As I attended the last Deans and Directors meeting I noticed that there were quite a number of new deans and directors. We need to take advantage of this opportunity and get the word to them about T-OADN. We need new members and we always need nominees for T-OADN offices.

Teddy Roosevelt said, "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing." I will work hard to represent T-OADN but you are doing the work worth doing - the work of angels.

-Helen Reid

Faced with 3 years of declining retention rates in their ADN Program, Blinn College is reversing the trend with Operation REACH. Although funds for Operation REACH were not released and the program not started, until March, 2002, the ADN program's overall retention rate for May, 2002 increased to 77%, up 10% from the previous year. The retention rate for the Class of 2003 is 79%.

Funded by a $143,000 grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board's Nurses Innovation Grant Program, Operation REACH provides recruitment, remediation and retention services tailored to the needs of nursing students.

Remediation takes place through individual counseling sessions with the REACH Coordinator. Research has shown that students who have difficulty understanding or learning material often wait until it is too late to seek help. Taking a proactive approach, any student who fails a nursing examination meets with the REACH Coordinator for Individual Test Analysis. The Test Analysis tool diagnoses the source of the student's testing problem-insufficient knowledge base or deficient test taking skills. Once the problem source is identified, the REACH Coordinator discusses techniques the student can use to improve both study and test taking skills. One delighted student reported that she obtained a 92% on the next exam by using the information from the Test Analysis session. Eighty one individual counseling sessions for academic performance were given in the first 3 semesters of the grant.

Nursing faculty held group tutoring sessions for 44 out of 47 eligible students in Spring 2002 semester. But with the implementation of two hours of classes/workshops on active learning techniques and test taking skills each semester by the REACH Coordinator, the tutoring sessions have not been needed again.

Non-academic problems can create retention issues. The REACH Coordinator advised students on Time Management issues. Individual counseling sessions were given by the REACH Coordinator to 10 students for assistance with food, financial, and physical and mental health issues.

Having a full time REACH Coordinator attending college recruitment events for high school students and job fairs for adults gave Blinn's ADN program a five-fold increase in its recruitment efforts. Citing a need for recruitment, remediation and retention services, Blinn's Allied Health Program Directors are looking for ways Operation REACH can provide services to their students in the future.

For more information, email jstowell@blinn.edu

-Jane Stowell