This is Knox, making his feelings about having to take a holiday photo known. He’s the 9th dalmatian that we have rescued over the years. He’s got one blue eye and is the absolute sweetest dog. He’s named after my friend’s son, Knox Baehr (pronounced “bare), so most of the time we call him Knox Bear.
Wow, soooo many questions from all of you! I’m going to try to answer a few of them here:
Will this delay my graduation? The short answer: yes, probably so. I don’t make that statement lightly. I can only imagine how distressing that is. Almost every nursing student around the whole country currently has the same concern. All I can say is that we’ll do what we can to avoid that, but it’s a real probability.
What’s the plan/what’s going to happen now/when will I make up my clinical courses/do you want to hear my solution? All of the solutions that you have proposed in the many emails I’ve gotten have, in fact, already been considered by nursing program faculty, staff, and administrators. Really. It’s been only a couple of days since we realized that we would be unable to provide clinical courses and that theory courses have to go remote. We are still concentrating on where we are. It took a full 12 hours just for the nursing administrative assistants to administratively drop all of you from clinical courses. It’s a complicated process because of the co-requisite requirement. We are focusing on what we have to do and know for the next few days to get up and running on Monday. That was the reason for the pause in classes.
You need to know that everyone at the College wants to know the plan, but we first have to take stock of where we are right now. You cannot provide care to a patient without getting report, right? We’re still collecting information and assessing the impact. We have all kinds of ideas about the best way to proceed, but we’re going to do that thoughtfully and with intention, and be sure that we have the resources in place to execute our plan.
What’s going to happen with my financial aid? The financial aid office is figuring that out. Like us, they first need to figure out where they are. All college employees were told on Monday that we need to move toward working remotely. This means that many people, who don’t normally work from home, need the right equipment, resources, and training to work from home. Like, thousands of people. They need to get settled and get functional before they can address this important issue. Every college and university in the country is facing this same issue. Unfortunately, all you can do about this situation is be patient.
What about international students? There is absolutely nothing the nursing department can do to give international students answers right now. The international office wants resolution as badly as you do. Be patient, know that they are working on this.
Will the Board of Nursing make some exceptions/concessions to allow us to graduate? Possibly. But remember that the Board of Nursing administers the Nurse Practice Act. This is a state law. State laws aren’t changed on the fly or at the drop of a hat. The Board of Nursing has been in constant communication with us and will tell ALL nursing programs if they make any exceptions or concessions. Calling or emailing the Board of Nursing will not help the situation. Again, this is a state-wide (nationwide) problem. Trust me when I say that the Board of Nursing knows there’s an issue.
I’m trying to reach my professor and he/she isn’t getting back to me, what can I do? We’re on pause from classes. Your professors are working on getting your classes up and running for Monday. Check your D2L shell once a day and then go back to studying and reading. Give them time and be patient.
I’ll continue to answer more questions as they come up. We’re all here for you, but you also have to give us time to work and figure things out. When I say we’re working on it, I mean we’re working on it.
Thank you for always being so diligent and keeping us informed. I know this isn’t easy for any parties involved.
Thank you!
Greeting Dean Turpal,
I have heard from several students who have friends in other nursing programs in the area, that the other nursing schools are providing online clinical simulations to complete their clinical hours. If there was any way we could do the same at least for the trens students, so that we have the opportunity to graduated within the month of May. I know you and the other administrators are busy trying to help all the students and we thank all of you, but I just wanted to see if this would be an options since supposedly it is happening at other colleges. Best Regards,
Sharlene R.
As I stated in the post, all of your suggestions are things that we are considering. Having already said several times that we are going to work to get Trends students through clinicals, I’m asking again for patience. You have seven weeks left of the session and, again, right now we are working on getting up and running for Monday. Be careful of what you take as fact from other students in other programs, or even our program. You may not have all of the facts. Just the fact that you are still in Trends clinical means that we are providing some of it through simulation. I think it’s important that all of you know that we do communicate with other programs, both in official organizations and through personal communication with Deans, administrators, and faculty.
Thank you so much for keeping us updated. Your hard work advocating for us and doing what’s best for us is greatly appreciated. Also, Knox Bear is seriously adorable. 🙂
Thank you for the update Dean Turpel. Although we know you are all trying to find a solution and keep us on track and to make up hours, even little updates like this help. It’s reassuring to hear that you and the rest of the staff/professors are doing everything you can to make sure we’re not set back and can do our hours. We appreciate you guys figuring out a way to keep us on track and we know everyone is anxious during this time so it does mean a lot. Apologies for the panicked emails (I myself included) You, the professors and nursing program staff are so appreciated. Stay safe! Thank you.
The Board of Nursing is meeting in early April and all Deans and Directors are anticipating that they’ll give us some concessions. They’ve asked us to be patient, so that’s all we can do.
Thanks for all of your hard work. This is a stressful time for all of us and we are grateful that you all are in our corner!
Good Morning Dean,
I hope you’ve had a nice cup of delicious coffee! Not sure if this was asked/addressed already but will we be able to take the next set of classes we registered for in the summer if we weren’t able to complete this semester’s clinical course?
At this point, we are considering all possibilities. It’s tough. We don’t want to put you at a disadvantage, but, realistically, I’ve been told for several days now that this “remote situation” may extend into the summer session. And, actually, most of it depends on what the hospitals do in another two months. It would be a really bad decision right now to try to get information from the hospitals about when we can get back in. They’re trying to figure out how to get through the next shift. We can only do what we absolutely know we can do right now. Check that you have everything in place if you are in a theory course. Your instructors have been posting some information and some “practice runs.” Use this time wisely to make sure you have the connectivity you need. READ, READ, READ!