By Emily Haleck
As nursing colleges and universities face shrinking enrollments on a seven-year decline, BYU”s College of Nursing has raised its numbers of accepted students from 96 per year to 128 per year, said Rae Jean Memmott, BYU associate dean of nursing.
“BYU is one of those outstanding areas in the country where we have more students applying than we can accept into our program,” said Memmott.
One reason the College of Nursing has been able to keep its numbers up is it is attractive to incoming students, said Ben Boyer, 24, a senior from Utah, majoring in nursing, and president of BYU”s Student Nurses Association.
“The great thing about going to school at BYU is that the faculty is really focused on keeping things spiritual and keeping an eternal perspective,” Boyer said.
Many other schools cannot fill previous enrollment numbers because of a lack of faculty. Furthermore, a third of existing faculty is expected to retire in the near future, according to the Utah Nursing Association.
BYU does not face this problem, due in part to a generous donation from Intermountain Health Care. The $50,000 contribution has helped the college stay afloat, allowing the hiring of part-time clinical faculty.
Innovation and hands-on learning are other reasons BYU”s College of Nursing continues to see success. All except two of the core nursing classes have clinicals, or on-the-job training.
Clinicals usually take place in hospitals but can occur in assisted living facilities or other healthcare centers, Boyer said. Last semester, he worked 18 hours per week in the emergency room at Utah Valley Hospital.
Most graduates leave BYU with nearly 1,000 hours of training, Memmott said.
Because of such extensive training, BYU nursing graduates can make a significant impact on the current nursing shortage crisis.
In addition, BYU nursing students have some of the highest scores in the nation on the registered nurse state licensing exam, making them highly qualified for work in the industry. The latest report on the exams concludes that the average passing rate for a BYU student is 98 percent.
“We”ve consistently been a lot higher than the national average of about 86 percent for the past four or five years,” Memmott said.
The test scores reflect the supportive environment at BYU and the hard-working nature of students.
“I think the nursing students are successful because they”re LDS and very service-oriented,” Boyer said.
