Protesting Nurses Save Program

The results are in.  President Rollin Richmond made the announcement on April 27, the Nursing Program will survive.

Instead, computer science, computer information systems and the master’s degree program in film suspended. Incoming freshmen cannot declare themselves computer sciences majors.

But, why would the nursing program, the most expensive of the three programs, remain available?

The students in the nursing department protested, rallied for support from the community and made themselves heard.

Nursing students gathered more than 1,650 letters from students and members of the community and sent them to Provost Bob Snyder. Granted, the program will be restructured to reduce the number of students admitted, butit will still admit students. Computer information systems will not.

The nursing program faxed protest letters to Richmond, CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and Governor Arnold Shwarzenegger. Computer information systems did nothing. The theatre, film and dance department did nothing.

Why didn’t they speak out?

While the other programs remained silent on possible elimination, the nursing program stood tall and fought against its suspension. They gained support from the community, the students and the faculty. It is because of the activism of the students that the nursing program still has a place next year at the university.

The nursing program at HSU did what many people thought could not be done.

Nursing is not a big program. It does not have many graduates each year.  When the Academic Senate recommended it for elimination, nursing seemed like an obvious target.

Nursing students did not tolerate it. They made themselves the biggest, loudest, most visible group around, and for a week, everywhere you looked, you saw angry students in scrubs. 

Whether or not he read every plea for mercy, Provost Bob Snyder could not ignore the collective roar of disapproval. He did the right thing and recommended that President Richmond spare the program.

What about the computer science and  computer information systems departments? We have not heard much from them-- no protests, no outraged students, no noticeable effort to save themselves.

The Provost recommended that President Richmond eliminate those programs, and most likely, they will go the way of the German and applied technology programs, which is to say they will go away.

The lesson is clear.  The nursing students thought their program was worth saving, and they made it known to the rest of us.  To change things at this university, you have to stand up and make yourself heard.

• Facebook Comments
• Site Comments

1 comments

Barbara

Thu May 6 2010 13:19

I would rather have a nurse that was trained at a place such as UC Davis or UCSF than some bonehead who got her degree from HSU.

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out