Klinefelter Hall, where many of the Dickinson State University's nursing class are held, is pictured on July 18, 2024. (Mary Steurer/North Dakota Monitor)
The new administrators of the Dickinson State University nursing program said Thursday it is “very likely” that faculty will be in place to teach classes by the start of the fall semester on Aug. 26.
Nursing program administrators from Mayville State University are working to rebuild the program after all seven nursing faculty resigned on July 10.
Those administrators, Carey Haugen and Collette Christoffers, spoke Thursday to the North Dakota Board of Nursing, which had asked Dickinson State for a plan to keep its program going after the mass resignation.
Dickinson State on Friday announced an agreement with Mayville State to have its administrators guide the Dickinson program that trains students to become registered nurses and receive bachelor’s degrees in nursing.
Dickinson State to get nursing program help from Mayville State
Christoffers said the first goal is to get applicants for the open faculty positions. She said those positions have been posted and are generating interest.
When asked about the likelihood of having staff in place for the start of the academic year, Haugen said, “very likely.”
“Our goal is to have the program operational by Aug. 26,” Christoffers said. “We will be boots on the ground. We anticipate the courses being in-person, or however they were originally scheduled to be.”
Christoffers said the former Dickinson State faculty could apply.
“The faculty that were there were exceptional,” Christoffers said.
The board, which monitors compliance with nursing education standards, will set a special meeting before the start of the school year to review progress on getting faculty in place.
Meanwhile, Bismarck State College made a request to the board for an increase in nursing program enrollment, in part, because of interest from Dickinson State students.
The request is for 10 more spots in its licensed practical nurse certificate program and 10 in its associate in applied science in nursing degree program.
The board did not act on the request, instead deferring it for possible action at the special meeting in August. A date for the meeting has not been set.
Bismarck State President Douglas Jensen spoke during the public forum portion of the meeting, saying that a decision on the request “will play a critical role in terms of our ability to admit students.”
The Dickinson program has 111 students, according to the board.
Haugen and Christoffers said they will be meeting with students Friday in Dickinson.
The faculty members resigned after Dickinson State tried to increase the workload for faculty to be in line with standards set for other departments. The nursing faculty refused to sign the contracts.
Dickinson State president announces he is quitting
On July 15, Dickinson State President Stephen Easton announced he was quitting , citing the nursing dispute as part of the reason.
The North Dakota University System has yet to name an acting president for the college.
Teresa Bren is one of the faculty members who resigned.
She told the North Dakota Monitor the resignations were not meant to force Easton to resign.
“The faculty, former faculty of Dickinson State University, saw contracts that they could not ethically sign, that they knew they couldn’t meet, and therefore each of us made an individual decision not to sign our contract, which happened to be a collective action, but it was not for leverage,” Bren said.
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The post Dickinson State ‘likely’ to have nursing faculty for fall semester, new administrators say appeared first on North Dakota Monitor .
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