Butler partnership with Cowley College off to an encouraging start
Program goal is to address critical need for nurses in the area.
Less than one semester in, Butler Community College’s program with Cowley College to help educate nursing students in the Winfield area is being called an unqualified success. The root of that success lies in the dedicated partnership between the administrators of the program—Janet Schueller, Butler’s Associate Dean of Health, Education and Public Services and Chris Cannon, Department Chair and EMS Program Director for Cowley College.
“Cowley has been an amazing partner; I can’t say enough positive words about their responsiveness,” said Schueller.
“Dean Schueller and the Butler nursing faculty have all been a pleasure to work with to get the program up and running,” Cannon said about the process.
Joshua Hardy, Butler’s Winfield site coordinator, sees firsthand the impact one-on-one time with instructors has on the Cowley County residents he sees in class. He also forecasts positive things for the future of nursing in Cowley County, believing that “students doing their clinical rotations in the rural care setting presents them with the opportunity to possibly work in those areas after they graduate.”
Students come to Butler’s El Dorado campus for simulation and clinical testing but do nearly everything else from a designated room on Cowley’s Winfield campus, including receive in-person instruction from Hardy and remote instruction from professors based in El Dorado.
The schools even share equipment, with Cowley supplying items used as part of their pre-nursing program, and Butler bringing in other items needed to fit the AAS curriculum.
As the first group of students finish their first semester, there is already optimism the program can continue to grow to meet rising needs. “Healthcare is in a bad way, and we need more of everything, but especially nurses,” Schueller said. “The goal is that we will one day be able to add more spots by admitting [groups] every semester instead of just annually.”
Cannon agreed, noting that the current group of purple-clad nursing students he sees on campus is, as he said, “filled with eager and qualified students.”
Click here for more information on the Butler-Cowley nursing partnership and Butler’s nationally recognized nursing program.
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