Nursing Program Overview

Our Mission

The mission of the Westfield State University Nursing Program is to prepare nursing graduates who are skilled in promoting or maintaining health by delivering  skilled, compassionate, client-centered care to individuals, families and communities  utilizing cultural and ethical understanding and  demonstrating leadership and life-long inquiry. In keeping with this mission, the Department of Nursing will offer an accredited baccalaureate program within the context of a scientific foundation and breadth of a liberal education leading to a professional nursing degree. Excellence in teaching, productive scholarship, and contributions to the nursing profession and the community will be evidenced.

The Department will prepare graduates as generalists in nursing who can assume a broad spectrum of nursing roles in the health field. Upon completion, graduates will be eligible to write the NCLEX examination for licensure as a registered nurse.

The Department will establish a foundation for graduate study in nursing and patterns that can serve as a model for lifelong, self-directed learning. In doing so, it is expected that students will appreciate nursing's past, recognize its present place in health care, and formulate judgments about its role in meeting health needs in the future. The mission of the nursing program will be fulfilled by:

• Creating a caring, nurturing, and diverse student-centered environment
• Encouraging critical thinking and ethical decision making
• Providing skilled care to clients across the life span with an emphasis on geriatrics
• Enhancing the discipline of nursing by utilizing the most current health care information or when appropriate creating new knowledge to further the nursing profession
• Recognizing the necessity of continuing professional and intellectual growth of the faculty

Program Goals

The goals for the Westfield State University Nursing Program are to assist its students to:

1. Integrate knowledge from the humanities, physical and social sciences and to recognize and to support diversity in the practice of nursing.
2. Use evidence-based skilled nursing practice to promote, maintain and restore health across the life-span to individuals, families and groups in a variety of health care settings.
3. Become beginning professional nurses who embody legal, cultural and ethical understanding to deliver patient centered care in a collaborative, caring and safe manner.
4. Utilize critical thinking skills to formulate skillful, caring nursing interventions to effectively meet health care challenges for individuals, families and/or communities.
5. Utilized current gerontological knowledge to maintain and restore health to aging clients or to support a peaceful end-of-life.
6. Value and confidently use appropriate health care technologies to enhance the care of patients.
7. Model an understanding of the role of the professional nurse as a leader who recognizes the importance of effective communication skills, the understanding of resource demands, the promotion of teamwork and the need to be flexible and delegate appropriately to achieve quality patient outcomes,
8. Demonstrate a spirit of inquiry, an understanding of self and a commitment to life-long learning.