Missouri Southern State University's nursing program escaped the death penalty this morning, but the State Board of Nursing made it clear the program needs to straighten up its act or it is headed for extinction.
(Note: This post has been edited to add the university's official statement.)
The board voted unanimously to give the university's program conditional approval and accept a plan for a voluntary moratorium in which no new nursing students will be accepted during the spring semester while a consulting firm helps to improve and modernize the program's teaching methods and curriculum.
Students who are already enrolled will be allowed to continue with their classes during the spring semester.
The decision also gave a reprieve to university officials who, despite being told during the July inspection that they might be ordered to accept no new students for the fall semester, went ahead and enrolled a new cohort and accepted the students' tuition.
Board members did not appear to be particularly impressed with some of the answers provided by Paula Carson, the university's vice president of academic affairs, who was not able to adequately explain why problems that were noted in the board's 2017 inspection were still evident in July 2020.
"We didn't ignore them," Carson insisted, adding that these were "consistent issues and concerns."
That could be why the board brought them up.
MSSU's nursing program has been in disarray for more than a year with 12 of the 14 instructors who were in place seven months ago no longer associated with the university. When some left, the university did not replace them and increased the workload for remaining instructors without a corresponding increase in pay which led to more resignations.
Just as concerning was the pass rate for students which has fallen to about 80 percent, something that appears to be a direct result of the staff departures and also put the program at risk of losing its accreditation.
The former head of the program, Marcia Wilmes, was removed in June.
The State Board received numerous complaints about the local program from students and former employees, most of them leveled at decisions made by Wilmes.
The university was down to only two teachers for the fall semester and told the state they would have eight in place by the beginning of the semester.
Despite a mad scramble to fill the vacant positions, the efforts fell short and when the semester began Monday, only five were in place. Two others have been hired and approved and will begin within the next couple of weeks, Carson and Lisa Beals, interim director of the nursing department, told the board, while the eighth instructor is awaiting board approval.
Carson told the board the schedule has been rearranged so that the shortage of instructors at the beginning of the semester will not keep students from receiving all of their classroom and clinical hours.
After the State Board's July inspection, Beals updated the department on the situation in a message sent July 10:
First, I would like to say that the reviewers were very gracious in their approach to the situation. I met with not only the reviewers, but also the provost, vice president for academic affairs and the new president yesterday.
I feel it is important to stress to you all the need to consider the nursing department, faculty and students as what I am about to tell you is not a matter to discuss with ANYONE outside of the department, even former employees or confidants.
What we do, say or how we act as a department from this point on will be crucial to a positive outcome. The department's credibility is at stake. I hope that everyone will be mindful in your communication because if you are not, peoples (sic) quality of life is at stake.
As of present, the reviewers have provided two options.
First, that the university accept a voluntary moratorium on student admissions.
The other option, if this is not chosen, is a mandatory moratorium.
The leadership team at the university discussed this at length during the process of the review and after the exit. I recommended a moratorium as I felt this demonstrated our desire to do the work to reorganize the department and that we are acutely aware of how we got here and our determination in going forward.
The university officials have the ultimate decision because this impacts so many things from Fall/Spring enrollment to even the very future of the nursing program at MSSU.
It is an extremely serious situation and one that will require an unimaginable amount of work at a point when we have all worked so much over the past year.
Only the Missouri State Board of Nursing can lift the moratorium and only if we have demonstrated meeting the standards.
I will receive a summary of all the MOSBN recommendations very soon. However, I do think that the University does not want the program to fail and are invested in changing the culture as well as the educational aspects of the nursing program.
I also think that students and university officials have noticed the culture in the department as being less than optimal.
Missouri Southern State University issued the following news release this afternoon:
In 2019, prompted by board pass rates in the nursing program, Missouri Southern State University and the Missouri State Board of Nursing began the process for curriculum and programmatic changes.
As a result, a hold has been placed on accepting a new cohort beginning in the spring of 2021. The hold will not affect the current Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) students nor the program’s national accreditation status.
The Nursing Department at Missouri Southern historically has had an exceptional reputation – serving students and the community for more than 45 years. To improve student outcomes, significant changes are currently being implemented to ensure the program’s long-term vitality.
New nursing program leadership and faculty have been hired and are committed to Missouri Southern’s mission and values.
“We will continue to do what is best for students and focus on all facets of the program,” said Dr. Paula Carson, provost and vice president for academic affairs. “Work has begun to improve curriculum in order to provide students with the classroom and clinical experiences needed to prepare them for the national board exam and career success. An experienced consultant has also been contracted to assist in this process.”
Those efforts have already shown positive results in creating improvements within the program, she said. During the Spring 2020 semester, 90% of students passed the national board exam on the first attempt which exceeds the 80% state requirement.
As the demand for well-prepared nurses grows – both locally and nationally – so does the demand for quality nursing education.
Missouri Southern is dedicated to strengthening the outcomes of the program while preparing students to enter the workforce. The president, Board of Governors and campus leadership will continue to support program progress and provide input to ensure that MSSU graduates top-notch nurses prepared to offer excellent care and meet the needs of a diverse patient population.
“By continuing to work with the Missouri State Board of Nursing, Missouri Southern will ensure students receive the right education for their professional field,” said Carson. “Our students are always our first priority."
***
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29 comments:
I would like to know what some of the issues in the program are and why they haven't been addressed. Excellent nurses, well-trained nurses are integral to a modern healthcare system. I graduated from Labette Community College nursing program a very long time ago, when we performed nasogastric procedures on each other. Our professors were hard-core and some were military nurses. We learned or we left. A patient depends on a good nurse.
Would be interesting to know why 4 nursing faculty were fired 1 business day before the start of their new contract. Allegations of incompetence doesn't quite match the truth of students who were taught by these 4 instructors doing better on the exam than previous years. Seems to me these 4 instructors were making the program better, but probably pissed off the administration and/or gave truthful information to the state board of nursing. smells fishy to me.
This all happened under Dr. Schooler as Dean and under Dr. Carson as Provost.
This is all on leadership. This happened under the watch of Dean Dr. Schooler and VPAA Dr. Carson who has been the chief academic officer for years. The program was underfunded and understaffed. Professors were overworked,underpaid and pressured to keep enrollment up. A predictable outcome.
MSSU is not a real university, it is a glorified college not worthy of that status. Most going there are barely able to get out of high school. Notice the entrance requirements, no SAT, no outside proof of work, low GPA and breathing is what they say. Now, try and imagine what the school being set up now to train doctors, do not want one working on me unless it is life and death and unconscious. It is a true sign of low achieving SW Missouri students and people in this area. Give it up as you should and the airport also.
I completely agree.
First off, the pay at MSSU is horrible across the board, therfore it is hard to get the best of the best. Second of all, the work environment is politics and superficiality. The professors truly care about the students most of the time but they get burned out and get tired of the politics.
I'm an MSSU student, and I adore my professors. They are intelligent, hard-working, and caring people, but, above all, they are great teachers!
That said...
Admin is atrocious. They all deserve to be canned. The fact that they would take students' money for a program that is suspended is immoral and fraudulent if you ask me. I hope the students sue and get their educations for free.
Pay the professors and staff, hire more employees to keep the workload down, and fucken do the right thing.
MSSU is an excellent school that represents SW Missouri very well. At times, colleges and universities experience challenges within their departments. From those challenges come changes in leadership, and more positive results for the nursing department. MSSU has excellent professors, and offers many diverse programs and degree options. And also the Joplin airport, serving SW Missouri very well. Until COVID hit, they were approaching back to back years of record passenger counts.
Instead of all the negative posts constantly on here, how about smiling and looking towards more positive results and attitudes..........and supporting our community.
MSSU Nursing program has been in trouble for several years, coming from a nursing student. It didn't happen because of the administration, because all have been working hard to make it better for us students. It has needed change for the better for several years now. They have been working on making it better. They will continue to make it better. Their students are number one and will be taken care of as always. No one is ever left out or without any help. It didn't just happen in one year and it takes time to make it better it doesn't happen overnight. MSSU Nursing needed changes and that is happening and I am sure the administration, teachers, and students will be better in the future. MSSU is a great University. We students love it. The staff is great, the administration is great, and the New President will work hard to make it great for it's students. Students are MSSU's first priority.
Um, no, how about stop expecting people to keep quiet about the problems here to keep yourself away from "negativity." Seriously, MSSU started the negativity by defrauding students. Holding then accountable for that action is not "negative." I suppose if the board had revoked their nursing accreditation, you would have thought it "negative." Get out of here with your oppressive peace b/s. Also, we pointed out that the professors are wonderful and are not at all responsible for the decisions that admin make.
Lastly, I refuse to support a community that would rather see its citizenry die of COVID than wear a GD mask.
There's some peace for you.
As a MSSU Nursing alumni, this should have happened many years ago. Multiple complaints were made to Dr. schooler with nothing coming out of them! Pretty certain that complaints were made multiple years in a row and you’re finally seeing what should have happened long ago. The state board is no joke and wouldn’t shut them down unless they actually found things wrong
As a single mother who moved from Oregon with my children specifically to enter the MSSU Nursing program Spring 2021, I am angry and beyond frustrated with the Admin at Southern. Two weeks ago I met with the interim Dean of Health Sciences (Dean Hackett) as well as interim Director of the Nursing Department (Dr. Lisa Beals)and was told there was no plan to cancel the spring class and to finish this semester with plans of starting the program in January. Now I’m left scrambling for alternatives when classes have already started this semester and deadlines are approaching...
When they knew the program was suffering in 2017 but continued taking in 70+. students each semester only to turn out 25 nurses is something to be angry about. As a single mother of two who was entering the program in the spring, I am beyond frustrated. Not to mention how this is being handled with the applicants.
I'm so happy for my MSSU nursing education when it was so much better and 100% pass rate in 2006.
Administration have no clue what is going on in departments. The department leaders that report to Administration have no clue. They hire in friends and leave the people that have been working there for years with no voice. It is sad but that is why things fall apart.
You are correct, administration has no clue and doesn't even try to have a clue. They are busy with "pet projects of the provosts" and they can't keep a watchful eye nor offer a lending hand to their programs that bring the students in. It is with high hopes that now that community knows that the program has fallen less than standard in their performance that hopefully administration will have to step up their leadership game and be held responsible for their lack of accountability and leadership practices. Thank goodness the Board of Nursing stepped in and to all of the students input/concerns that helped to instigate this visit from the board.
If you were privileged enough to watch the video of the board meeting you would note the board asking for the administration to address to multiple, numerous concerns that the students have for the program. Administration literally just sat there, looked at each other and the only offer of how administration was going to address the student concerns was Paula Carson's statement "the students are always priority". Obviously not Paula, only your ridiculous six digit figure salary that unfortunately, comes from the pockets of these students who just want to make a better life for them and their families. I truly hope that the Board of Governors sees the lack of leadership that Paula Carson shows for the school and soon find someone to replace her and next would be Wendy McGrane and Rick Schooler. Why would a university even consider hiring a retired OB/GYN with no experience in academia, who can never be found on campus because he is too busy with his own agenda trying to develop programs that he can't even manage. Oh, and he is a professor in those programs and he has never taught. Yes, that there is QUALITY education folks. SMH.
In the meeting with the board of nursing, MSSU suggested things like returning back to an ADN program, not taking any spring classes again and only taking fall classes (not sure how that helps with the current nursing shortage) and they were cited for 13 deficiencies that the board addressed that MSSU had made slow to no progress towards correcting those deficiencies. They also stated it would take at least a year to get their new curriculum started but had hired a curriculum firm to help out. So what are those poor students to do during that year? And who is to say that they will be able to take a class again if they have had months to fix the problems and haven't even tried? And a new advising counselor was hired to help with advising students. That sure would have been nice to have had when I was a student in the program because it was next to impossible to find my advisor due to the classes she taught.
As a student who applied to the program in the spring, I am wondering if my application will be carried over to the next year or will I get a refund for my fee? What am I supposed to do now? I feel so betrayed that I cannot finish a program that I was told just over the summer right before school started that everything was ok. It clearly isn't. And I saw on MSSU's FB post that they are referring students to other programs in the Health Science. Uhhhh, no thanks MSSU! If you can't be honest about one program, then how do you expect students to believe in the other programs? It makes you wonder just how bad off the school really is if the largest program on campus is being threatened of closing.
The board of nursing addressed and questioned numerous times administration and the director of the program that clear expectations of 8 faculty would be on board for teaching courses in the fall to students who were previously admitted and attending the program. The board questioned why only 5 were on board and that only 3 of the 7 that have been hired have previous academic experience. Again, administration skates around the obvious question avoiding that they admit wrongdoing to the students and community by not following through the list of deficiencies stated by the board. So why is this fair to students? Do they not deserve to be taught by experienced faculty that will later help them to meet the expectations in order to pass their licensing boards?
Also, the board addressed how students were to voice their concerns and how the administration will assist those students to solicit feedback not only for the students but faculty as well and again, the answer came up blank from administration. Ms. Carson suggested that they go to their current Dean of Health Sciences, Dr. Schooler but if you read the above comments, his support is less than optimal from responders. So I guess the question is, WHO is actually there at that school to see that the environment is that for successful instruction for these students within this program to further on into their careers? It appears that perhaps, they should not have admitted a class this fall since they did not have adequate staff/faculty but was in need of the almighty tuition dollar to fund the universities downfall of a reported $8 million dollar loss to the university. Too bad those students were thrown under the universities financial bus to be run over. I hope and pray that someone will assist those students that were misled into this program by dishonesty from administration to achieve their goals, perhaps at yet another institution.
Unbelievable. Maybe now when all of us students complain they will start to take it serious. But I doubt it. They will just keep taking our money and we are the ones that have to repay it on our loans and end up with nothing to show for it. Moving on to Pitt State.
So word around campus is students have like one instructor for their entire first semester of classes,like 15 credit hours, not sure how that is going to help make the program better! How can one instructor teach all of those classes being new also, and do a good job? Are they having to teach their clinical too? Haha! Glad I changed majors last spring!
Really no surprise, they lost their nurse practitioner program and now they can't even fill a full class. And no class in the spring. That's got to hit them right in the pocketbook! Lookslike it might be an interesting year for the college.
So if they knew their pass rates were so bad, what did they do to try to help them? They have not commented at all on their page about how they helped that. Are they blaming faculty? The students? Because they sure are not owning up to being a part of the problem.
Carson needs to go before she ruins that entire school while it is still salvageable and hopefully take Schooler with her.
If these are the students writing these negative comments god help us as these are the leaders of tomorrow, especially in the medical field. You definitely don't know what your talking about. Talk about no clue. There is not one student who is not being taken care of. Change is never easy but it takes the tough, people who have been there in situations and have to sit down and decide what needs to be done and how it needs to be done according to state guidelines and who are willing to make the tough decisions. The nursing board didn't step in because of these problems, they already existed. The board stepped in because nursing scores were not at the level they needed to be. It takes more than you sideline, recliner sitting know it all's or at least think you know it all to make change and get things done. But that takes time, it doesn't happen overnight or even in a year or two. It takes time to build a program to where it needs to be. Students are MSSU's first priority and not one student is being left out. No one was defrauded again voices who have no clue rambling on about things they know nothing about. In the end, and it will take time its going to be a much better program than it has ever been. Bless the strong leaders who are able to make change. Not the ones who sit back and gripe and complain and wouldn't know where to start or how to be a team player and get things done. Even if its a decision others are not going to like. But what is best for the school and the students is first priority. Always!! Thank goodness for change and thank goodness for the leaders who can make that happen. These are the people who make it in the world not the ones who sit back and complain and 99% of the time don't have a clue to what their talking about. Go MSSU, change and make things better for the students in the long run.
Is there is anyway to contact the Nursing faculty who filled lawsuit. If they are reading this then kindly respond. This University is disastrous.
I just happened to see the postings here accidentally while exploring about Joplin and the education institutions in the area. Today is April 11, 2021, which is about 8 months after all these postings and comments about the nursing program at MSSU. I wonder how the nursing program is now. Hopefully positive changes have been implemented to ameliorate the issues and problems that have affected the quality of the once great nursing program at MSSU. It can be fixed and improved as long as there is transparency and inclusivity (welcoming feedback and comments from the students, staff, non-nursing faculty, program advisory members from the community, nursing alumni, and former nursing faculty). The national passing rate is one of the primary and extremely important benchmark to tell if the program is being managed effectively and efficiently. If the nursing program has improved its passing rate, then the current nursing leadership is on its track. They are doing it right. The other important factor to fix is to improve the morale and public image of the nursing program, and this may take time, but it will happen. The students' voice is one of the strategies to help in this regard. I have had previously fixed problems of health science programs in several institutions including the passing rate, retention rate, accreditation issues, working and learning environment, faculty morale, etc. My advice is to listen to the students, faculty and staff within the department, and also get external feedback. Also, appreciate the faculty and staff for their work as faculty. Micromanaging, fault finding and "abandoning" (not visiting or meeting the program faculty and students), would cause the program its downfall. Anyway, I wish you all the best in keeping, maintaining, improving and leading the program back to its greatness. Thank you for reading this.
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