By Meghan O’Brien, Nebraska Public Media
Nebraska-The University of Nebraska Medical Center announced plans last week to accept applications from international students for its bachelor’s in nursing degree program on its Norfolk and Scottsbluff campuses, with coursework beginning in the fall semester.
Prior to the decision, international students who wanted to pursue UNMC’s nursing program would need to travel to study in Omaha, Lincoln or Kearney, according to Angela Johnson, assistant dean of the Northern Division in Norfolk.
A report from the Nebraska Center for Nursing estimated a shortage of 340 full-time nurses in northeast Nebraska. Johnson said even educating an additional student or two might help address the need.
“Even if we all were at our full capacity and we’re educating every possible potential nurse that we could, we wouldn’t meet that need,” she said. “So, we have to work collaboratively to make sure that we’re meeting the needs of the community in regards to health care and nurses.”
UNMC in Norfolk works closely with Wayne State College and Northeast Community College, Johnson said, where international students have expressed interest in pursuing nursing.
“When these international students have set their roots in these communities, it’s disruptive to not allow them to continue the bachelor education that they’re looking for, and then they have to uproot again and move to another new community,” Johnson said.
Haley Hays, interim assistant dean of the West Nebraska Division in Scottsbluff, said she works closely with Western Nebraska Community College, where about 10% of the student population is international students.
Of the international student population at WNCC, Hays said about a dozen are actively pursuing nursing education. While those students get their education, they’re also forming relationships with healthcare professionals in the area, she said. Students on an F-1 visa can continue to work in the U.S. for a year following graduation.
“Once they graduate and they take boards, they’ll start to actually seek employment, and they’ll kind of go back on the relationships that they’ve already formed in the community with some of our clinical partners for employment,” Hays said. “And so these students, once they have become ingrained in the communities, they want to stay and they want to work in those communities.”
In the panhandle region, where the Nebraska Center for Nursing reported an estimated shortage of 215 full-time nurses, Hays said opening up applications to a new demographic could impact the workforce.
Outside of Nebraska, Hays said including global perspectives in the nursing education track may even help UNMC develop a more global scale of research and funding.
“I think by now being able to take these students on our campuses, from a diversity standpoint, we’re going to be able to open a lot more doors, which is also going to help our overall academic profile,” Hays said. “So it’ll be very beneficial for us, just as it will be for the international students.”
Johnson said she’s excited that students across the state will now have access to the same curriculum, no matter which UNMC campus they’re at.
“(Nursing) was not something that was offered on all five (campuses), and we’re constantly looking at ways to ensure that the experience a student receives on one of the five campuses is the same as on all five,” Johnson said.
Norfolk and Scottsbluff each expect up to two international students to enroll, but Hays and Johnson both said they hope to see enrollment grow as time goes on.
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