|
careers
Nurses always
needed
By Kimberly
Pasquis
On-line Forty-Niner
Nursing student
Carol Vance was one of 36 lucky students accepted into the
nursing program last fall. If she had not been accepted she
would have had to look into other educational options to pursue
her dream of becoming a nurse.
It is the single
most expensive program on campus and the most impacted. The
nursing department is only able to accept 36 students per
semester to its program when 500 to 1500 apply.
The nursing program
now runs into two prevailing problems: lack of facilities
and lack of faculty. According to Keith Polakoff, vice president
of academic affairs, the student to faculty ratio in the nursing
department is set at 10-to-1. Cal State Long Beach is budgeted
at 19-to-1.
In universities,
there was discussion of a bill to provide additional funding
to grow high cost programs, like nursing. However, because
tax revenues dropped last year, the bill was dropped before
it reached the governor's desk.
"We are budgeted
for $13,000 a year from the state," said Loucine Huckabay,
director of the nursing department. "I spend that in groceries
every year. If it wasn't for the grants we receive every year
we would be dead."
The nursing department
now operates using four classrooms for over 500 students.
The classes are split up between graduate students and undergraduate
students to be able to maximize the little space it has.
Graduate students use the classrooms on Tuesdays and Thursdays
and the undergraduates use the classes on Mondays, Wednesdays
and Fridays.
The lack of funding
has also influenced the quality of equipment that the department
uses.
"It is frustrating working with equipment that is out of date
or doesn't work," Vance said. "Our instructors are really
trying their best. It feels like their hands are tied but
we've made the best of it."
Fortunately, the
students that graduate from the program will have no problem
finding a job. According to Huckabay, nursing graduates encounter
a 100 percent success rate in entering the field.
All hospitals in Southern California need nurses. Donald Lauda,
dean of the college of health and human services, said that
a nursing shortage has run up to the year 2010.
"We are very concerned
and we are trying to do whatever we can do to floor that rate,"
Lauda said. "But unfortunately all departments are competing
for the same dollars."
Many students who
apply to the program and are unsuccessful change their direction
and complete a nursing program at one of many of the local
community colleges. Once students obtain their associates
degree they apply again to the nursing program and hopefully
become one of the lucky 36.
According to Huckabay,
students who obtain only their associates degree for nursing
are not equipped educationally to gain management jobs or
high profile positions. All graduates of the nursing program
at CSULB are identified as public health nurses because they
graduate with a bachelor's degree in nursing.
"Like teachers,
nurses are needed but they are not paid," Huckabay said.
Because of the
heavy load that nurses are met with in their first years of
being in a hospital setting many do not continue and quit.
Some solutions
to the problems are currently in the works. Polakoff said
there has been talk of leasing parts of what once was Long
Beach Community Hospital to be used for instruction. There
is also possible interest with hospitals in nearby areas to
supply nurses as faculty members.
All of these answers
though will have to be backed up with money that will continually
flow into the program. It is not financially viable to invest
in new faculty and facilities if the money will not be there
in five years.
|
