 Staff Nurse of Mary S. Shook Student Health Services, Kevin Long, checks his patient’s vital signs at the facility’s After Hours Clinic on Monday. Photo by Zack Wilson | The Appalachian The college, which restructured different health departments and programs from around campus, houses five departments and 16 majors.
Frederick Whitt, founding dean of the College of Health Sciences, said reorganization and new programs should help retain and attract students.
“One thing that is pretty unique is we’re taking programs from four different colleges on campus, and we’re working on developing a structure and infrastructure for the college,” Whitt said. “Unfortunately, several students transferred away from Appalachian last year thinking the program would get approved sooner, but at orientation this summer our numbers were huge in the areas of health sciences.”
The Department of Nursing is one of the college’s five departments and contains a newly approved four-year bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) program. The college accepted the program’s first class in April.
“Typically a nursing major is a high-quality major on campus, and I think it will attract high quality students to Appalachian that wouldn’t have come before,” Wendy Miller, director of the prelicensure BSN program, said.
The BSN program has also already received accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), which is an autonomous accrediting agency that strives to contribute to the improvement of the public’s health, Miller said.
In addition to nursing, the college will also house the departments of social work; communication sciences and disorders; nutrition and health care management; and health, leisure, and exercise sciences.
Because the departments and programs within the college come from four different areas of campus, Whitt feels that managing change will be the most challenging aspect of the first year.
“When you have students and faculty coming from four different colleges, everyone is used to doing things four different ways,” Whitt said. “We’re going to create a fifth way, and hopefully a hybrid model, that will bring the best practices from each of those units.”
The college also hopes to utilize health-related organizations in the community and has formed collaborative partnerships with the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System, Northwest Area Health Education Center, Be Active North Carolina program and North Carolina Research Campus.
Watauga Medical Center, a prong of the Appalachian Regional Healthcare System, has agreed to donate about $10 million worth of property to Appalachian for the collaborative project with the college.
“The goal is we’ll build a new facility out across from the hospital where the old Lowes Hardware is,” Whitt said. “But it will go further than that, certainly we’ll be using the hospital for our clinical placements, we’ll look to do health-type programs in the community as collaborative partners, and recruit health care physicians to the area.”
Story: NASH DUNN, News Editor
Photo: ZACK WILSON, Intern Photographer
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