To facilitate more students’ entrance into Western New Mexico University School of Nursing programs, the university is taking steps to improve the pass rate of the entrance exam by offering workshops in disciplines especially essential to the career track. The content of the workshops is also designed to improve the success of nursing students by equipping them with the knowledge and skills necessary for their progression through the program.
As the WNMU School of Nursing implements its newly developed and now state grant-funded holistic student success model for pre-nursing & pre-licensure nursing education, students are completing workshops in communication and math.
“We’re piloting these workshops as one way to better support nursing students through the completion of their Bachelor of Science in Nursing degrees and their ultimate entry into the workforce,” said WNMU School of Nursing Associate Dean Dr. Kim Petrovic.
To strengthen writing skills for pre-nursing students, WNMU Humanities is offering three composition workshops. To provide an essential math foundation, the WNMU Math Department is opening two workshops this spring as well.
“The composition course materials will be focused on issues within the field of nursing, but the writing skills and assignments will be structurally the same as our traditional composition,” said Luke E. Kingery, who is one of the three WNMU faculty members working to offer the humanities workshop for pre-nursing students.
Taught by WNMU Assistant Professor of Math Sarah Schott and Adjunct WNMU Math Instructor Shanon Muehlhausen, the one-credit hour math courses are being offered as electives. Over five weeks, students will gain practice converting fractions and percentages to decimals, calculating and recalculating IV flow rate, and doing the math necessary for administering medication based on weight. They will also work on memorizing metric abbreviations and conversion facts as well as medication abbreviations.
Throughout this pilot, the WNMU School of Nursing is collecting benchmark data to measure and evaluate success of these workshops for potential full implementation in the future.