Albuquerque – After Doña Ana Community College (DACC) petitioned for a review of the decision, the New Mexico Board of Nursing (NMBON) voted to upgrade the status of the community college nursing program and lifted the admission restriction which will allow DACC to enroll students in the Associate Degree of Nursing (ADN) program in fall, 2017.
“I appreciate the NMBON for recognizing the work we do when considering this petition,” DACC President Renay Scott said. “I want to also thank our community for supporting our high quality program and hiring our students.” “This is great news for our community, our faculty, staff and our students,” she added.
In February, the DACC ADN program approval status was changed to conditional by the NMBON. Conditional approval restricted the ADN program’s ability to admit new students into the program but did not impact students that were currently enrolled. The conditional status was imposed because for three consecutive years the pass rate for first-time takers of the NCLEX-RN exams fell below the required 80 percent. The pass rates were, 42% in 2014: 70% in 2015: and 77.7% in 2016.
On April 11, the Nursing Education Advisory Committee (NEAC) heard the DACC petition to revisit the approval status after reviewing the first quarter NCLEX-RN pass rates. The committee voted to recommend a change from the conditional approval status to full approval- with warning. The next anticipated review is in two years. As part of the NMBON approval, DACC must submit quarterly reports on the NCLEX-RN pass rates for the next two years.
The DACC ADN program received initial accreditation August 4, 2015 by the national Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing. The program’s accreditation was not lifted by the NMBON decision.
The DACC nursing program is continuing to accept applications for the fall 2017 ADN nursing cohort which will close on June 30, 2017 at 5 p.m.
Information from: Doña Ana Community College