Shorter’s Brady School of Nursing ranked among best in the state

ROME — Shorter University’s Ben and Ollie Brady School of Nursing has been ranked No. 6 on a list of the 10 Best Colleges for Nursing Majors in Georgia, according to a list compiled by Zippia. 

“We are pleased that these rankings recognize the excellence of our nursing program, and it is gratifying to see our program ranked above larger state institutions, including Georgia College and State University, the University of West Georgia, Clayton State University, and Armstrong State University,” said Shorter University President Don Dowless.

“At Shorter University, our nursing program is crafted to fit well with our mission of Transforming Lives through Christ. Our nursing faculty excel in providing the classroom and clinical training that future nurses need to be successful in their careers.

Added to that is a strong emphasis on the calling of serving others with the love of Jesus Christ through the nursing profession,” Dowless said.

According to the organization’s website, the Zippia rankings are based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the College Scorecard data from ED.gov, including career results, percentage of graduates who are nursing majors, and school performance factors.

'An exiting time'

Roxanne Johnston, dean of Shorter’s nursing school, said the rankings are an exciting development for the Brady School, which has also just learned of its graduates’ performance on the NCLEX (the nationwide examination for the licensing of nursing) during the 2017 calendar year. 

“This is an exciting time for our school,” Johnston said. “We are happy the rankings recognize the work we are doing to provide excellent nursing education in a Christ-centered environment. Also, we’ve just gotten the results from our last student who took the NCLEX, and it brings our pass rate for the 2017 calendar year to 84 percent. Those results will most likely be updated on the Georgia Board of Nursing’s website in early 2018. In addition, we were pleased to note that, for the 2017 graduating class, the pass rate was 90 percent.”

The NCLEX scores reported on the state nursing board’s website record the pass rate for any graduates of a nursing program who take the test for the first time during a single calendar year. “Of the 2017 graduating class, those that did not pass have all retested and passed and are fully licensed nurses,” Johnston added.

“I am proud of our students; they have worked hard to do well on the NCLEX,” Johnston said. “I’m also proud of our faculty. They have taken extra time to develop plans to improve test scores and executed those plans well.”

Shorter’s School of Nursing recently received a 10-year reaccreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), which is the maximum length of accreditation awarded by CCNE for Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs. The Brady School faculty is working on plans for its 2018 international/intracultural health care mission trip, which will take the junior class of nurses to Haiti where they will serve in health clinics during Spring Break.