Weimar Institute’s nursing program was recently named as one of the top 60 nursing schools in California in 2018 by the Nursing Schools Almanac.
The Almanac evaluated over 3,000 nursing schools nationwide on “the institution’s academic prestige and perceived value; the breadth and depth of nursing programs offered; [and] student success, particularly on the NCLEX national licensure exam.”
“I’m very thankful for this rating,” notes Dr. Lenora Follett, the chair of the nursing department at Weimar. “God has blessed our program as all of the graduates who have taken the NCLEX have passed on their first attempt. They are uniquely prepared to minister for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual healing,” she adds.
The Almanac also considered a graduate’s ability to repay debt promptly and the number of years the program has been in operation.
Weimar Institute incorporates a strong work-study program instead of student loans to enable students to graduate with relatively little or no debt. In comparison, Forbes magazine estimates that a 2018 college graduate is paying off an average of more than $37,000 in loans after graduation. To compound the situation, Forbes notes that California is among the four states with the highest amounts of “total student loan debt outstanding among resident borrowers.”[1]
In terms of the program’s length of operation, Nadia Hasse, a second-year nursing student says, “I think it’s pretty neat to see our little school as number 51 out of the 90+ nursing schools in California. It’s amazing to see how God has worked to bring us to this level in only four years since the first cohort began the program.”
Additionally, Weimar Institute is building a reputation for producing students not only with high quality nursing skills but additional levels of critical reasoning and emotional intelligence. Alison Chong, nursing professor, shares that “during a clinical at a local hospital, one of our students had an understandably anxious patient facing surgery. She spent extra time to calm the patient by sharing encouraging thoughts, gathering her fellow Weimar Institute nursing students to sing a hymn to the patient, and offering to pray for the patient’s surgery and recovery. Later, the chief nursing officer called the students and their professors into a hospital leadership meeting and expressed appreciation for their ‘exceptional care’ of the patient.”
Hasse continues: “I think this is a big responsibility. The world is watching Weimar, but we need to keep our eyes on Christ. As long as we do this and keep being faithful in the little things, we will be as ‘a city set on a hill’ (Matthew 5:14) and God will keep blessing us with greater and greater responsibilities.”
Follett agrees. “We need to use this blessing [the recognition of the nursing program] for God’s honor and glory in preparing many more who would like to minister as medical missionaries,” she emphasizes.
Though recognition of the program and enrollment continues to grow, Weimar staff and students realize, through the words of Hasse, that God “is the One who brought us this far and He will lead us on.”
To learn more about the nursing program, go to https://weimar.edu/academics/academic-departments/nursing, email [email protected] or call 530-422-7999.
[1] “Student Loan Debt Statistics In 2018: A $1.5 Trillion Crisis”. Forbes, Zack Friedman, June 13, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2018/06/13/student-loan-debt-statistics-2018/#1525c0bc7310