Nursing Program Going STRONG After 50 YEARS

by Emily Kesel

Central Methodist University has a long history of seeing a need in its community and stepping up to fill it. Few examples of this trend have had as big an impact as one that began in the mid1970s, when Central Methodist College saw an opportunity to provide a new path for those entering the nursing field.

Fifty years ago, Central began offering an associate’s degree in nursing and credit toward a bachelor’s degree for previous nursing preparation courses, setting the stage for a nursing program that would grow exponentially over the next five decades. Today, the CMU nursing program accounts for around ten percent of the student population on the Fayette campus and spreads even further through a robust online learning platform. As the demand for excellent nurses has grown, so has Central’s output.

But while the program filled a need in the community as a whole, it also filled a very personal need for one of its first students. In 1974, Memphis, Mo. native Nanette (Padgett) Young had just returned to Fayette for a visit with some former classmates when CMC suddenly had a way to offer a path to her goal of becoming a nurse. Young had attended Central for a year to earn pre-requisite credits and then planned to go on to a three-year nursing program elsewhere, but a long wait list and the prospect of years more tuition had her “crying the blues” upon her return to campus.

“I was eating lunch with some friends in Holt Hall, acting like ‘poor me,’ and an admissions counselor heard about my problem and told me they’d be starting a nursing program in the fall,” Young recalled. “I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this can’t be real. This can’t be happening.’ It was like a sign from God.”

Blazing The Trail

Young became one of the first 40-plus full-time nursing students at Central in the fall of ’74, a cohort she describes as “competitive” but wide-ranging in the types of students served.

“I soon realized the diverse backgrounds of all of us,” she said. “I was one that didn’t have any kids, didn’t have another job, didn’t have any of those kinds of life responsibilities that most of the other students did. So I had an advantage there.”

Even while the students were competitive, though, Young recalls that there was a sense of having something to prove as the first class. While whispers circulated that the program’s continuation could lead to Central Methodist straying from its liberal arts roots, the nursing faculty encouraged the students to focus on working hard to set high standards.

“My concern was that I didn’t want to be in a nursing program that was going to fold in a couple years, but the professors were really knocking it into our heads that the scores we got on all those tests really, really mattered. So we all worked really hard,” she said. “Maybe at that point, our class had something to prove – that we could do it, that this was a worthy program, that we were providing a valuable service.”

NEW ERA, SAME LESSONS

All that turned out to be true, as Young and the rest of the first nursing class paved the way for the next 50 years of students, like MaryAnne Dunson Winn, a 2007 graduate and the current program coordinator for the BSN program.

Under the leadership of the first director, Marsha Staats, the nursing program stressed taking accountability for one’s actions and constantly using critical thinking skills. Five decades later, those are still the traits most admired in Central graduates hired by area hospitals, Winn says.

“We train our nurses to think,” she said. “Some places may be very skill heavy and teach you to do every skill, but on top of that we also teach the thought process. We are very heavy on the thinking process, and that’s not a skill that’s easily learned.”

“They stressed critical thinking,” added Young of her teachers in the early years of the program. “Now so many nurses can follow the algorithm that they’ve set up, but it’s important to be able to defend what you do and why you did it.”

Central students do indeed still benefit from being able to learn with the most cutting-edge technology, in addition to learning the critical thinking skills. Just this past summer, the program received a $150,000 grant to purchase top-of-the-line mannequins for the lab, and like all programs on campus, nursing students benefit greatly from the Digital U initiative. From digital textbooks to ventilation simulators and many, many machines in between, CMU stays up to date with all the technology used in hospitals and doctor’s offices around the country.

“Everything here is technology-driven, but we still teach what to do if you didn’t have it,” said Winn.

While the tech has to stay up to date in order to give the students the best possible education, so do the educators themselves. In another feature that sets Central apart from other schools, the faculty members all have the ability to be off-campus for a day each week to maintain clinical practice.

“You’ll find a lot of schools will not offer the time in the contract for working, aside from on weekends and breaks, but here we have that balance. We understand the importance of being up to date on what we want to teach,” Winn said. “I think the students appreciate it, because if you’re teaching them one thing and they go [in the field] and see something else, they’re not going to trust what you’re teaching them.”

THE NEXT 50 YEARS?

This fall, there were nearly a hundred oncampus students in the clinical program for nursing, with many more studying in one of the other degree options – both on campus and online – provided by Central. The goal is to keep attracting more and more students, to keep building on the foundation laid 50 years ago.

The University is an attractive transfer destination for many seeking a nursing degree, but Winn emphasized the unique opportunity for incoming freshmen to guarantee themselves a spot in the competitive program as well. Each year, up to 15 high-achieving high school students are selected as Dr. Megan Hess Nursing Scholars, securing a reserved seat in the next cohort. Named for the longtime faculty member and program director, the early acceptance program is aimed toward bringing the best students to Central right from the start.

All in all, Winn sees the program continuing to grow, following the expansion from its humble beginnings in 1974 to the basement of Stedman Hall during her time as a student to its current home in the beautiful Thogmorton Center for Allied Health and, inevitably, beyond. Wherever there is a need.

“It’s almost like we’re still this little, hidden gem,” she said, “and my goal is to keep helping people realize we are here.”