About the School of Nursing

To develop nurses who lead in high-qualilty, holistic, compassionate, and culturally responsive care in Western North Carolina and beyond.

We aspire to transform nursing practice through high-impact educational experiences and the development of nursing scholarship to support the health and well-being of the communities we serve.

• Caring:  Promoting well-being and comfort through kindness and behavior modeling
• Collaboration:  Engaging in supportive partnerships to foster meaningful experiences
• Compassion:  Cultivating a shared awareness and connectedness with the experiences of others
• Inclusivity:  Cultivating an environment that values diverse perspectives and fosters belonging                equitable access to opportunities and resources
• Inquiry:  Seeking a deeper understanding of nursing through curiosity and discovery
• Integrity:  Demonstrating trustworthiness, accountability, and ethical behavior

The undergraduate student is able to:

1. Apply the nursing process with clinical judgment to provide safe, holistic, and compassionate care to diverse individuals and populations across the lifespan. 
2. Synthesize knowledge from nursing and other disciplines to inform clinical judgment, provide evidence-based care, and explore innovative solutions to improve healthcare on the individual and systems level.
3. Improve individual and population health by integrating principles of leadership, advocacy, health equity, and social justice with knowledge of health policy, health care systems, and the social determinants of health.
4. Collaborate in a culture of safety and quality through an understanding of healthcare systems, care outcomes, evidence-based practice, economics, and regulatory requirements.
5. Communicate effectively through written, verbal, behavioral, and technological modalities to manage information, collaborate with the healthcare team, gain knowledge, and drive decisions for safe, high-quality, efficient, and evidence-based nursing care.
6. Cultivate lifelong learning and integrate professional standards rooted in the ANA Code of Ethics to lead with empathy, self-awareness, integrity, and resilience in providing therapeutic care and supporting nursing excellence.

The master’s nursing graduate will:

1. Demonstrate competence in a defined role or area of advanced nursing practice.
2. Utilize the process of scientific inquiry to translate evidence into advanced nursing practice.
3. Demonstrate cultural sensitivity and an understanding of human diversity in delivery of health care across the lifespan.
4. Build and lead collaborative interprofessional care teams to improve quality outcomes.
5. Lead in the integration of healthcare services across practice environments.
6. Promote excellence in practice environments through a commitment to lifelong learning.

Upon completion of the DNP program, graduates will:

1. Analyze and integrate evidence from nursing science with evidence from other relevant scientific disciplines to form a scientific foundation for advanced practice in nursing.
2. Apply clinical scholarship, scientific evidence, and analytical methods to improve healthcare outcomes.
3. Develop and evaluate systems to enhance safety and quality of healthcare.
4. Advocate and participate in collaborative interdisciplinary efforts to improve health outcomes at the practice/organization, community, state and national levels.
5. Engage in culturally competent and ethically sound advanced nursing practice.
6. Demonstrate leadership in the improvement of patient outcomes and transformation of healthcare delivery.
7. Directly manage complex health problems of clients or develop and implement organizational systems to facilitate access and navigation of the health care system.