After a decade-long hiatus, the undergraduate nursing program at
UCLA will reopen and expects to begin taking applications for
students entering in the fall of 2006, UCLA officials announced
Monday.
None of the University of California campuses currently offer
undergraduate degrees in nursing.
The UCLA School of Nursing had offered an undergraduate program
since it opened in 1949, but the program was dropped in the
mid-1990s due to budget cuts. The school currently offers
master’s and doctorate degree programs in nursing.
The school also announced that it is adding a master’s
degree in clinical nursing, a two-year program that will focus on
improving patient care.
These programs were funded in the UC’s 2006-2007 budget,
approved Nov. 16 by the UC Board of Regents, which gave the School
of Nursing an additional $5.2 million to restart its undergraduate
program and add an entry-level master’s degree to its
offerings.
The expansion of UCLA’s nursing programs is part of larger
trend across the state to deal with the state’s nursing
shortage. California currently has the second lowest
nurse-to-population ratio in the country.
“These important new programs will help address the severe
shortage of hospital nurses in the state,” said Chancellor
Albert Carnesale in a press release. “These changes exemplify
UCLA’s efforts to improve the quality of life for the people
of California.”
The nursing shortage is expected to intensify as the
state’s population continues to grow in size and average age
continues to increase. The shortage is also compounded by the
inability of current nursing programs to keep up with the amount of
interest in the profession and the population’s demand for
health care.
The nursing school at UC San Francisco has announced plans to
increase the capacity of its graduate program for nurse
practitioners, and UC Irvine has expressed interest in opening a
nursing school with undergraduate degree programs.
Since the closure of UC programs, undergraduate nursing
education has been limited to 13 programs at California State
Universities and nine private schools in California. More than
two-thirds of registered nurses in the state currently hold degrees
from two-year community colleges.
Reinstating the undergraduate nursing program has always been
the wish of the School of Nursing, said Marie Cowan, dean of the
school.
The undergraduate nursing program will offer courses that
introduce students to nursing administration, staff training, and
cost analysis, as well as case management and leadership. The
nursing major will also give students firsthand experience in the
field.
Nursing students will undergo extensive clinical training,
completing a 40-hour rotation each week under the guidance of
nursing professionals at the UCLA Medical Center and the Santa
Monica-UCLA Medical Center, as well as other hospitals and health
care centers in the area.
The addition of these two new programs is expected to more than
double the number of nursing students enrolled at UCLA by 2010, and
the School of Nursing plans to hire 22 new faculty and five staff
to accommodate them.
There are currently about 300 students enrolled in graduate
nursing programs.
The undergraduate program will enroll about 50 students per
year.
The curriculum for the clinical nursing master’s degree
was approved Monday by the Graduate Council of the UCLA Academic
Senate, Cowan said.
Approval is still required for the undergraduate bachelor of
science degree. Cowan says she expects the Academic Senate to
consider the curriculum in the coming weeks.
Students in the undergraduate nursing program will also have the
option to earn their master’s degree in clinical nursing in
only three additional quarters.
Current UCLA undergraduates will be able to transfer into the
nursing program if they would like to follow that course of study,
Cowan said.
Incoming freshman and transfer applicants must be accepted to
UCLA before applying to the nursing program, according to the
School of Nursing’s Web site.
The UC system-wide application deadline for the 2006-2007
academic year is Nov. 30.