CONTACT - Volume 8, Number 1
Graduate Programs in Nursing

The fall term was an extremely productive and illuminating time for the graduate faculty. At the beginning of the term, the faculty participated in a doctoral and masters' retreat. This work enabled us to critically examine the curricula within the context of current and future trends in nursing and health care. After review of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing position statement, "Nursing Education's Agenda for the 21st Century," we did much brainstorming about relevant content and processes.

Using the AACN's "Indicators of Quality in Doctoral Programs in Nursing" as a template, the following changes were made. We decided that the doctoral curriculum was consistent with the philosophy and mission of the Division of Nursing. We liked our philosophical base, but believed that we needed to broaden it in scope. We believe that in a practice discipline such as nursing, there is the thoughtful and discriminating application of knowledge from many fields of human endeavor. Thus, we also envisioned stronger links between the interdisciplinary core courses and nursing knowledge. Our aim was to develop a curriculum that strongly prepares students to begin with a philosophical base and evolve into scholars that expand nursing knowledge, theory development, and methods to test that theory. From the beginning of the program forward, we would give them the full range of theoretical, conceptual and methodological knowledge that is necessary for students to successfully complete a dissertation. Since the Ph.D. is a research degree, we will no longer have separate role components. Thus, information from the professorial and executive role courses was merged into the masters' specialties. Students will, however, be able to focus their research efforts in the areas of clinical, education, and administration.

Then, using the AACN "Essentials of Master's Nursing Education" and other credentialing criteria as a template, we evaluated all of the core and specialty courses in the masters' program. Continuing our subspecialties of family nurse practitioner, nurse educator, and nurse administrator, we expanded and reclustered content into: (a) Graduate Nursing Core, (b) Advanced Practice Nursing Core, and (c) Specialty Curriculum Content. We also discussed future articulation between the undergraduate, master's, and doctoral program in examining the competencies for theory and research.

We are very enthused about these changes and feel sure that this new structure will enable our students at both levels to be qualified to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Janyce Dyer, DNSc, RN, CS, FNP-C, CRNP
Associate Dean