DICKINSON, ND ( KXNET ) — University leaders in Dickinson have one week to go to get ready for classes this month.

This comes after the former Dickinson State University president resigned and the entire nursing faculty quit.

But this week, people in charge of the campus say the classes will start on time. The university shared an update on its nursing program this week, which you can read here .

“It’s intense right now because we started on July 22nd with no faculty,” Collette Christoffers said.

Both Christoffers and Carey Haugen don’t need to be reminded of the date. They know they’re working on a tight timeline.

“It’s anxiety-producing, it’s nerve-wracking because we have so many pieces of the puzzle we’re putting together,” Christoffers said.

“We just divide and conquer,” Haugen said.

Both are career nurses who were recently tasked with making sure Dickinson State University’s nursing program doesn’t miss a beat when classes start in less than two weeks.

“We can’t just take a particular nurse out of the hospital and plug them into the academic setting. Some of it does come down to differences in degrees, what are they able to teach?” Haugen said.

The campus was in crisis in the last two months when the school’s nursing faculty quit, conflicting with president Steve Easton, who resigned last month.

“The program serves a very specific area within North Dakota, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. So, there is a real big geographic pull for this nursing program. So, this allows this community to grow its own nurses who will stay local,” Christoffers said.

For Dickinson State, it means hiring new faculty, Christoffers says the university was approved to offer some classes virtually.

“The clinicals and the skills lab, those will be in person,” Christoffers said.

The state board of higher ed also approved Ty Orton from the DSU Heritage Foundation as acting president.

“We have had some students going to other locations or pausing their nursing education and maybe re-enrolling next year. So, there is some shifting,” Christoffers said.

Before he resigned, President Easton was pushing for larger class sizes and ways for the university departments to be more profitable. That’s something that DSU leaders will have to consider in the future.

“I don’t want to hear one of our students or a student anywhere who goes $200,000 or $300,000 in debt to get their bachelor’s degree and then they get a job where they’re making $50,000 a year. That’s not a win for anybody,” Orton said.

For now, it appears the campus will take every win it can get, starting with making sure classes are on time on August 26.

We also asked a spokesperson for the North Dakota University System who tells us the State Board of Higher Education expects to appoint an interim president at DSU at their September 24th meeting.

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