The Mission of the Nursing Program is to prepare qualified registered nurse professionals who enhance the quality of life for individuals, families, groups, and communities.

Our Core Values

As the School of Nursing moves forward with its mission, it is guided by the core values of Tusculum University and its own values that are grounded in professional nursing practice that embraces clinical and scholarly excellence. The students, faculty, and staff will:

1. Communicate with integrity and act with ethical values and principles.
2. Create an environment of inclusiveness where individual, intellectual and social diversity are valued.
3. Promote and practice life-long learning, inquiry, and critical thinking.
4. Partner with our healthcare communities by creating relationships to promote common interests and shared values.
5. Practice stewardship through fair and responsible management of gifts and resources.
6. Generate commitment and passion for the practice of nursing.

Our Purpose

The baccalaureate nursing program at Tusculum University will prepare individuals to assume entry level, generalist professional nursing positions through educational experiences that are built upon previous nursing preparation and knowledge of the arts and sciences. The program will create an atmosphere in which individuals can develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes consistent with professional values and evidence-based nursing care.

Philosophy

The Nursing faculty affirms the mission, vision and purpose of Tusculum University . In addition to the University’s core values, the nursing faculty holds the following values and beliefs as foundational for educating baccalaureate prepared nurses. Further, these beliefs guide interactions with students, patients, colleagues, healthcare professionals, and the public as well as providing the framework for preparing graduates to practice in the changing and complex social, political, economic and healthcare environments.

Person: A unique individual, possessing dignity and worth, who is in constant interaction with the environment. A person is composed of physical, psychological, socio-cultural, developmental and spiritual dimensions, but when examined as a whole, is more than the sum of the parts. The term “person” incorporates the concepts of learner, self, individual, family, group, community and population.

Health: Health is a dynamic multidimensional state represented by the health-illness continuum and is affected by personal choices, values, and interactions with the environment. The physical, psychological, interpersonal and social aspects of health are inseparable in the individual. The degree of balance between the person and his/her internal and external factors determine the person’s level of health. The practice of Nursing promotes an awareness of healthy lifestyles and choices. Nurses compassionately assist persons to re-establish health and cope with illness or impending death.

Environment: The environment is the domain in which people exist. It is the collective of all conditions, circumstances, and internal and external forces. The interaction between the environment and people affects health, well-being, growth and development throughout the life cycle.

The diverse and ever-changing environment is affected by internal and external factors. Internal factors include the biological, psychological, and spiritual attributes of the person, while external factors comprise physical, chemical, socio-political, cultural, economic, political, legal, ethical, and organizational elements. The environment is influenced by and responds to dynamic forces including technology; education; values; and economic, geopolitical and population characteristics.

Nursing: Nursing is a professional practice discipline, which combines the science of nursing and the art of caring for others. The science of nursing is the body of knowledge generated from nursing theory and research as well as knowledge applied from the sciences, liberal arts, and social sciences. It involves knowledge, critical thinking skills, and collaboration with other disciplines to provide high quality, safe, effective patient-centered, holistic care. Nurses as caregivers, teachers and patient advocates must use evidence-based practice and technology that incorporates ethical, moral and legal standards.

The art of caring is the creative and dynamic application of nursing knowledge. Caring emanates from a commitment to preserve and enhance the integrity and dignity of persons. Caring relationships begin with the self and embrace all those one touches within the environment.

Professional Values: Professional values and the behaviors they exemplify provide a foundation for the practice of nursing. Exhibiting professional values is the demonstration of high-level personal, ethical and skill behaviors that characterize a member of a profession. Nursing is an accountable, autonomous practice profession that is guided by a body of knowledge and a professional code of ethics. Professional nursing also supports research and education to expand nursing knowledge and it use.

Nursing Education: Nursing education is a process that involves the educator and the learner in collaboratively pursuing and sharing knowledge. Learning is a deliberate and dynamic process characterized by the acquisition of knowledge, self-awareness, breadth and depth in critical thinking, and by cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills all of which change the behavior of the learner. Learning occurs best when the learner’s rights are respected and when the learner accepts responsibility for self-direction and his/her own decisions.

The focus of nursing education is critical inquiry that enables the learner to recognize phenomena, take appropriate actions in a variety of situations, and to interactively evaluate outcomes. The reflective process emphasizes creative insight, valuation and self-realization. The goals of liberal and scientific education must be integrated with those of professional development for students to become competent practitioners of nursing care. Thus, the integration of the principles of liberal and scientific studies with the principles of nursing care is essential to the students’ discovery of the conceptual knowledge of nursing; one that leads to lifelong inquiry and improved patient care outcomes.

The educator enters the learning environment as a facilitator, mentor, resource person, and co-learner who uses multiple methods of instruction. The educator respects and values the knowledge and experiences of students and fosters their continuing professional role development.  The educator guides students by developing, organizing, and structuring knowledge; by fostering a spirit of inquiry, a sense of discovery, and a desire for life-long learning.

Students are viewed as adult learners who engage in the educational process by assuming responsibility for their learning and their decisions. The learner enters the process with a unique personal and cultural history that serves as a rich resource for the learning process. This background energizes the learning environment and provides the impetus for lifelong personal and professional growth.

Program Outcomes

The School of Nursing program outcomes are to:

1. Integrate and apply knowledge and skills from the arts, sciences and social sciences to the practice of safe, high quality nursing care for individuals, families, groups and communities.
2. Apply leadership and communication skills to implement and evaluate patient safety and quality improvement initiatives for one’s own practice and healthcare team coordination in a variety of settings.
3. Integrate evidence-based practice knowledge, clinical judgment, inter-professional perspectives, communication skills and patient preferences in planning, implementing and evaluating patient care outcomes.
4. Utilize the nursing process as the foundation for nursing practice.
5. Apply concepts of population-focused health promotion throughout the lifespan including assisting individuals, families and populations to prepare for minimizing health consequences of emergencies or mass casualty disasters.
6. Develop professional leadership skills necessary to coordinate and manage patient care within the health care  system.
7. Integrate and use knowledge of patient care technologies, patient information systems, and ethical standards related to data security to provide and support safe nursing practice.
8. Apply knowledge of professional regulations and statutes, healthcare regulatory environments, healthcare economics and patient advocacy practices to the practice of professional nursing and assess the impact of these factors on vulnerable populations.
9. Incorporate collaborative and team building strategies to promote positive intra- and inter-professional relationships in the delivery of evidence-based, patient-centered care.
10. Demonstrate professional standards of conduct, including accountability for one’s own professional practice, respect for patient privacy and confidentiality, respect for peers, healthcare professionals and staff, and Identification of resources that may be used to solve practice dilemmas.
11. Implement and evaluate the effectiveness of individualized, culturally and developmentally appropriate patient-centered care to individuals, families, groups, and population aggregates.