Organization of Rudy School of Nursing and Health Professions
The School of Nursing is one of three (3) academic units of the University. The Dean of the School of Nursing heads the program and reports to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. The Deans allocate a minimum of 80% of their time to program administration and a maximum of 20% to teaching as mandated by the Tennessee Board of Nursing. Each Dean may appoint Program Directors to assist with administrative duties. The Director of the MSN program (under the supervision of the School of Nursing Dean) provides course coordination for the core MSN courses and MSN specialty courses. The School of Nursing has program directors for the BSN Program, RN to BSN program, and MSN program. The core MSN courses include: Nursing Theoretical Foundations, Nursing Research & Scholarly Synthesis, Health Information Systems and Nursing Technology, Professional Leadership Role and Interprofessional Collaboration Care, Legislation, Policy, Regulations, and Ethics in Health Care, Advanced Physical Health Assessment, Advanced Physiology/Pathophysiology, and Advanced Pharmacology. The MSN Nurse Educator specialty courses include: Nurse Educator Foundations, Nurse Educator Role and Dynamic of Higher Education, Teaching Strategies, Learning, and Evaluation Methods, Curriculum Frameworks and Design, Nursing Education Capstone, and the Nursing Education Practicum I and II. The MSN Nurse Executive Leadership & Administration specialty courses include: Healthcare Business and Finance Management, Healthcare Operations…, Professional Nursing Role in Integrated Healthcare…, Excellence in Advanced Leadership Roles, Executive Leadership Capstone, and Executive Leadership Practicum I and II
.
Faculty Advisors: Each nursing major is assigned a nursing Faculty Advisor upon admission to the School of Nursing. Advisors assignments are generated by the Office of Academic Affairs. The SON Faculty Advisor assists students in planning their program of study, advises students related to available resources, and may offer other assistance throughout the student’s tenure at Cumberland University. Faculty schedules allow specified times for advisement and consultation. Since faculty members also have classroom, clinical, and committee responsibilities students are strongly encouraged
to make an appointment in advance of attempting to meet and/or set-up a telephone conference call with faculty. Scheduling an appointment also enables the faculty member to adequately plan for the student visit and/or call. Appointment times for faculty members may be arranged with the individual faculty member.
Standing Nursing Committees
Admissions and Progression Committee
The Committee is comprised of four to six full-time nursing Faculty members. The Committee meets each semester to select students who will be admitted to the Jeanette Rudy School of Nursing in Spring, Fall and/or Summer semester of each academic year and to determine the status of students requesting re-admittance to the School of Nursing. Decisions of this Committee are final.
The function of the Committee is to:
- To review the admission files of students who do not fully meet the admission requirements.
- To review admission files of students who may have not been successful in another nursing program. These students will only be allowed one (1) nursing course failure before being permanently dismissed.
- Revise admission/progression policies as needed;
- Determine progression requirements of students who have received a “D” and/or “F” in one nursing course. This requirement may include conditions for re-admission and shall be at the discretion and vote of Admissions and Progression Committee members. Conditions range from repeating the entire nursing program of studies to repeating only the course in which a failing grade was earned. Any student receiving two (2) D’s or below will be permanently dismissed from the nursing program.
Curriculum Committee
The Committee is comprised of four to six full-time nursing Faculty members. The Committee meets once a month or as needed.
The purpose of the Committee is to:
- Conduct an ongoing evaluation of the nursing curriculum,
- Review Faculty recommendations for additions or changes in curriculum,
- Present recommendations for changes in program curriculum to the Faculty of the School of Nursing.
Assessment Committee
The Evaluation Committee is made up of four to six full-time nursing Faculty members. The Committee meets once a month and as needed.
The purpose of the Committee is to:
- Analyze the school’s performance and
- Conduct quality improvement evaluations of the effectiveness of the schools and institution’s procedures, programs, services, and resources. The school and institution is evaluated in terms of its own mission, goals, and objectives. Evaluators play a key role in identifying the school’s strengths and in making recommendations concerning adherence with accreditation eligibility requirements and standards.
Policies Committee
This Committee is made up of four to six full-time faculty members. This committee meets once per month and as needed.
The purpose of the Committee is to:
- Review policies related to the Nursing Program
- Update policies to reflect current needs of the program
- Revise policies as changes are required.
Professionalism Committee
This Committee is comprised of four to six full-time faculty members. They meet as needed to address issues that arise in the nursing program.
The purpose of the Committee is to:
- Resolve student issues
- Work with faculty to address and resolve any faculty issues
- Take a closer look at any critical incidents that arise
- Review student critical incident appeals at a faculty level and make recommendations to the Dean
- At the request of the dean, may be asked to review and provide a second opinion on clinical paperwork (Care plans, care maps, SBAR forms) or care plans and case studies and make a recommendation to the dean).
This committee does not make academic appeal decisions. All academic appeals and grade appeal are handled following the policy outlined in the Academic Catalog.
Leadership Committee
This Committee is comprised of four to six full-time faculty members. They meet once per month or as needed.
The purpose of the Committee is to:
- Identify priority issues in the program that need to be updated, streamlined or resolved
- Initiate and plan quality improvement strategies for the nursing program
- Assess quality improvements within the School of Nursing
- Deal with student complaints
School of Nursing Faculty Council Committee
This committee is made up of the School of Nursing Faculty (Full-time and Part-time faculty in the BSN, RN to BSN and MSN plus the student representative). It meets bi-weekly.
The purpose of the committee is to:
- Develop, implement and evaluate the programs in nursing education offered by the University.
- Update the faculty on University and campus activities.
- Vote on curriculum updates and revisions that have been passed by the nursing curriculum committee.
- Vote on policies that have been developed or revised by the Policy Committee.
- Discuss strategic planning for the School of Nursing and University.
- Discuss University, School and student issues that need entire faculty input.
- Collaborate on and prioritize projects.
- Present Committee Updates from Chairs of Admission/Progression Committee; Curriculum Committee; Policy Committee; Professionalism Committee and Leadership Committee.
- Review Mission, Vision and goals annually.
- Promote, support and provide advisor for the Student Nurses Association.
- Approve VSNIP and Sigma Theta Tau candidates.
- Approve committee appointments for the SON and University committees.
- Select senior superlative awards in the spring.
School of Nursing and Health Professions Advisory Council
The Mission of the School of Nursing Advisory Council is to provide a formal mechanism to acquire funding to support the school of nursing and its’ various programs.