The story below is from our January/February 2020 issue. For the full issue Subscribe today, view our FREE interactive digital edition or download our FREE iOS app!
The community college’s nursing program – and its students – celebrates accreditation.
When Virginia Western Community College lost its accreditation—and a $2.4 million lawsuit by its nursing students—it set about repairing a significant problem. The key move in 2017 was to hire Lauren Hayward to direct the program back to full accreditation. She has been an RN in Virginia for 20 years, has a bachelor’s degree in nursing, a master’s in nursing education and nine years working in nursing education, meeting the criteria for the job.
VWCC had lost its accreditation from Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) because its staff didn’t have enough advanced degrees. Finding those teachers was a difficult job because they aren’t a dime a dozen in Virginia, where nursing shortages are common.
Howard is backed by nursing dean Marilyn Herbert-Ashton, a 30-year veteran as a college and hospital administrator, nurse clinician and nurse educator. She has the requisite advanced degrees and VWCC PR Director Josh Meyer says, “With Marilyn’s background in nursing and nursing education, she has served to provide guidance and support to the program director and director through the ACEN accreditation process.”
The rebounding process took two years and the accreditation came from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. The new accreditation is retroactive to January of 2018 and is for five years. One of the problems for VWCC initially was that it lost accreditation, held for 24 years, but didn’t alert students for a full year. That loss of accreditation inhibited students from transferring to another school or taking a job in nursing, so 75 of them sued.
Students can now train at the new Fralin Center for Science and Health Professions, which has advanced equipment. There are 131 nursing candidates in the program now and VWCC is in the process of bringing other programs to campus, including some offered at Jefferson College before its merger with Radford University.
Nancy Agee, CEO and President of Carilion, noted the return of accreditation: “We are delighted about it, of course. This is more important to the individual graduates as they often cannot apply to a [bachelor’s degree] or master’s in nursing program if they haven’t graduated from an accredited school. We are hoping to transition [surgery technician] and one or two other programs to them.”
VWCC’s program is not directly affiliated with Carilion, but, says Meyer, “We work closely with the region’s health care providers to craft curriculum that will help them deliver the best patient care. So, there are employees of Carilion on our program advisory board. We also conduct clinical sites at Carilion for our students to learn in hands-on situations.”
Meyer says the accreditation program “is time-intensive and comprehensive. … There was a review process taking six months to determine our likely ability to be successful in the accreditation process. Candidacy was approved in January 2018, and a comprehensive and formal self-study of the entire nursing program was completed and submitted in December 2019. Following the submission of the self-study a team site visit for the program occurred in March 2019 to evaluate the program by a program-specific visitor.”
The continuation of the program is vital, says Meyer. “As the number of people approaching retirement age within Virginia Western’s service region continues to grow, and surpasses national averages, filling vacant jobs and providing care to our gaining population are critical priorities.
“To meet the growing demand for healthcare workers, the Fralin Center for Science and Health Professions was completed on our Roanoke campus in 2013. Since 2013, based on industry and workforce needs, the Health Professions School continues to develop and implement new programs, including Medical Laboratory Technology (MLT), Phlebotomy, Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
“In 2017 the college introduced a successful Certified Medical Assistant (CMA) program and in January will begin a new collaborative nursing assistant (CNA) program for students who want to pursue that as an on-ramp to the nursing pathway. The College also offers a practical nursing certificate program and is also in the process of implementing a physical therapy assistant program, that was once offered at the Jefferson College of Health Sciences.”
VWCC President Robert Sandel says, “The ACEN accreditation will help us serve our students, our area health care providers and our community better.”
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