Photo courtesy of Chaminade Univeristy
Chaminade dean for nursing Dr. Stephanie Genz and Dr. Helen Turner, dean of natural sciences and mathematics, respond to the news that the Hawaii State Board of Nursing has approved the opening of Chaminade’s school of nursing this fall.
State board gives go-ahead for Chaminade nursing program
Hawaii Catholic Herald
With the approval on March 4 of the Hawaii State Board of Nursing, Hawaii’s Catholic university now officially has a nursing program.
This fall Chaminade University of Honolulu will launch The Sallie Y. Miyawaki School of Nursing, named for late wife of Dr. Edison Miyawaki who endowed $5 million to the nursing program last November.
“This welcomed approval means that, in August, our first students on track towards earning their Bachelor of Science degree in nursing (BSN) will begin classes,” said the school’s dean for nursing Stephanie Genz.
Chaminade expects to graduate its first class of 40 to 50 nurses in 2014. They will leave with the foundational knowledge and skills necessary for their profession and will be prepared for the National Council Licensure Examination.
“We are grateful for the board’s approval,” said Chaminade’s president, Marianist Brother Bernard Ploeger, in a news release. “The nursing profession gives our students excellent career opportunities in a dynamic field where they can serve with significance.”
Brother Ploeger called the program “a perfect fit” for the university, “well-aligned with our mission and identity as a university whose goal is to prepare students for life, careers and for service.”
The nursing program will focus its curriculum on:
n Highly sophisticated, simulated patient care experiences;
n Clinical informatics skills which links health care with information science and computer science.
n Genomics and the ability to process information previously reserved for specialized geneticists and bioinformaticians;
n Cultural competency in the care of Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities (Chaminade is a federally designated Native Hawaiian serving institution);
n Geriatrics to care for an aging population;
The program will be housed in the Dr. Lawrence K. W. and Mrs. BoHing Chan Tseu Center for Nurse Education, which Chaminade has developed into a leading edge facility with two nursing skills laboratories, dedicated computer and instructional rooms, a state-of-the-art human simulator suite, a standardized patient laboratory, faculty offices and 10 renovated research laboratories for the biomedical sciences.
In November, Dr. Tseu made a capital gift of $1 million for the final construction of the nursing center.
J. Michael Windsor on March 3 donated $100,000 for the first endowed nursing scholarship which will be named for his late wife Mary, a nurse who died last summer. Windsor is on the university’s board of governors.
The nursing program was envisioned in 2006 by the last Chaminade president, the late Mary Civille (Sue) Wessel- kamper.
For more information, visit the Chaminade website at www.chaminade.edu or call (808) 735-4711.