We welcome you to consider UT Arlington College of Nursing as your choice for advancing your education and your career.

This is a time when many opportunities are available to students who are seeking new careers in nursing or would like to advance their professional nursing careers..
These are challenging times for health care and nursing education.

• The National Center for Workforce Analysis predicts that more than 800,000 RN positions will go unfilled nationwide by 2020.
• In Texas alone, 22,000 registered nurses are needed to fill these positions and the 100 nursing programs in Texas currently graduate less than 10,000 each year
• More than 8,000 qualified applicants are denied admission to any of the 108 Texas nursing programs annually.

Over the last decade increased enrollment and graduation of students from Baccalaureate programs throughout the state were possible through collaborative efforts between nursing education programs and health care partners as well as special funding.

UT Arlington College of Nursing remains committed to decreasing the nursing shortage by graduating increased numbers of BSN prepared nurses who will become new RN’s and meeting the educational needs of working nurses at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We are the largest nursing program in Texas with 7500 students, with 5000 in our online Academic Partnership (AP) RN-to-BSN program. This growth is a result of meeting the needs of working nurses and making our programs more accessible and affordable to them. To facilitate student success we have a wide range of resources, such as student success coordinators and scholarship and traineeship support has grown dramatically over the last few years, with over $1,500,000 provided to our students in the last 10 years from the Dream Makers scholarship program alone.

I am pleased to tell you that we are establishing an innovative process to help nurses, who obtain their Associate Degree, to continue their educations at UT Arlington to gain the BSN degree and beyond. To address national goal an 80% BSN prepared workforce by 2020, (At this time only 30% have a BSN degree and only about 18% ADN prepared nurses continue their education.) We are working with a number of community colleges to help students be ready to start our online BSN program immediately after graduating and passing their RN exam.

To have educational options for students that match their learning styles, we have retained our campus based programs (RN-BSN, initial licensure BSN, MSN NP, Educator and Administration, DNP and PhD) and have added the online initial licensure BSN and MSN Nursing Administration options to date.

The Spring 2011 graduation included 577 students, the largest number ever. (134 BSN, 406 RN-to-BSN, and 36 MSN)

We have grown to become the largest nursing program in Texas with over 7,500 students in Spring 2012 and have doubled our initial licensure BSN program to over 800 students each year who graduate to become new RN’s. With this growth we have ensured the high quality on which our reputation for excellence is based. For example, our Masters NP programs overall were rated in the top 15% and our Family Nurse Practitioner program in the top 10% by US News and World Report. Our initial licensure program has been rated by the Higher Education Coordinating Board as 1 of the 9 “High Performers” (out of 108 nursing programs in Texas) because we had over a 90% RN licensure pass rate and graduation rate. More than 97 percent of our graduates begin or advance their careers soon after graduation – primarily in the North Texas Region. Some of our BSN graduates have been hired in specialty areas such as Emergency, Trauma and Intensive Care units, which are not typical positions for new graduates.

Getting a BSN degree is an asset to nurses whose broad educational background and strong foundation in the sciences facilitates their upward mobility on the health care career ladder. BSN prepared nurses are can apply to Masters Degree nursing programs leading to teaching roles in academia and service, researcher positions, and becoming a Clinical Specialist, Nurse Practitioner, Nurse Administrator, Nurse Anesthetist and Nurse Midwife. A Masters degree is a prerequisite for admission into a doctoral program in Nursing such as a Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) or a PhD as well as in other fields such as education, public health, urban and public affairs, and anthropology.

We also offer Continuing Nursing Education courses at UT Arlington for nurses and health career certification programs including Certified Nursing Assistant. Our Rural Health Outreach Program CE courses are taken to the rural facilities to provide education on topics of their choice facilitated by UT Arlington nursing faculty. These programs share important common threads: Quality education delivered by outstanding faculty who believe in fostering professional success. The many students who come from Oklahoma, Louisiana and throughout Texas to one of our programs will tell you that they made the right choice.

A degree from UT Arlington is an affordable choice both financially as well as in terms of your time. As one of over 11,000 alumni of UT Arlington College of Nursing, doors will be wide open to you. And, the time to become a nurse has never been better. With predictions that the Nursing shortage will continue for the next decade, a Nursing career will mean choices in work settings, types of positions, and security knowing that there is a well-paying and prestigious position waiting for you upon graduation. According to annual Gallop polls, nursing is considered as the most trusted profession.

We are committed to excellence in teaching, scholarship, clinical practice, community service, collaboration and leadership; and we invite you to join us in the pursuit and celebration of nursing excellence. Please see this website for details and call to make an appointment with one of our advisors or program directors. We are all here for you and are confident that your decision to join us will be a good one.

Elizabeth Poster, PhD, RN, FAAN