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Regents approve satellite nursing program at Acworth

By Sandy Watkins
[email protected]
Staff Writer

The nursing lab on the Heritage Hall campus in Rome gives students hands-on experience.

The Georgia Board of Regents has approved the plan for Georgia Highlands College to establish a satellite nursing program at Acworth.

The Regents� decision came in January, according to Dr. Virginia Carson, vice president of academic affairs.

There are three qualified applicants for every one that is currently accepted into the Georgia Highlands College nursing program. The Acworth program will help meet the needs of the students and community, Carson said.

�Many of the applicants live some distance away from Rome. Forty-one percent of the currently enrolled students live in Cobb, Bartow and Cherokee counties,� stated Carson.

Georgia Highlands College (then known as Floyd College) offered nursing classes in Cartersville as well as Rome in the 1990s. However, the classes in Cartersville were discontinued when the job market saw a dip.

Presently, there is a high demand for nurses and large numbers of students wanting to enter or bridge into the nursing program. So, Georgia Highlands College is going to once again make the nursing program available to students in Bartow County, Carson said.

For a number of years, GHC has collaborated with North Metro Technical College in Acworth. North Metro is interested in having the GHC nursing program so LPN graduates from North Metro can bridge easily into the Georgia Highlands College RN program.

North Metro is willing to make its facilities and nursing laboratory classrooms available in partnership for this program. North Metro and GHC have signed contracts to this end, Carson said.

In addition, GHC students will continue to have access to the four general education classrooms on the North Metro campus. This will enable them to complete their core curriculum academic classes in Acworth as well.

Before the satellite program can be implemented, it must be approved by the Georgia Board of Nursing. The request for approval is on the Board�s March agenda, according to Carson.

Once approved, the satellite program will admit 25 students in August 2006 and continue to admit that number annually, making 50 additional slots available at any given time in the two-year program.

Carson concluded, �This program will enable GHC to serve both students and the community by preparing graduates near their homes to help meet market demand.�