The Department of Nursing is an integral part of Missouri State University and the College of Health and Human Services. The Department of Nursing embraces the values of the University public affairs mission and is dedicated to excellence in: (1) undergraduate and graduate nursing education, (2) scholarship, and (3) service using a community-based perspective.
The Department of Nursing promotes the general mission of the University and the College, developing educated persons, by providing students the opportunity to think critically, solve problems, communicate effectively, develop self-responsibility, and grow personally as engaged citizens within a pluralistic global society. The Department offers community-based programs leading to professional nursing practice that is culturally competent, safe, and evidence-based. The undergraduate baccalaureate degree in nursing is based on knowledge from the arts, sciences, and humanities, and clinical experience in a variety of settings with diverse populations. The RN to BSN program builds upon technical nursing education and is enriched by courses in the liberal arts and diverse clinical experiences. Building upon baccalaureate nursing education, the graduate programs prepare nurses for advanced practice and teaching roles. The RN to MSN-Nurse Educator program provides an opportunity for exceptional students to progress from entry level nursing to graduate study in an accelerated format. The BSN-DNP prepares Family Nurse Practitioners to be community leaders in addressing health disparities. The Post-Master’s DNP builds on the students’ previous advanced practice degree and prepares them as community leaders in addressing health disparities. The Department promotes an educational environment that develops ethical nursing leadership, cultural competence, community engagement, and encourages life-long learning and the spirit of inquiry. Access to professional nursing education is facilitated through innovative educational technology.
The scholarly mission of the University, College, and Department is accomplished through the promotion of faculty and student scholarship. Faculty and student scholarship of integration, application, discovery, and teaching address health and health care delivery from the individual to the system level. In all types of scholarship, the faculty encourage the direct and indirect involvement of students.
Consistent with the University public affairs mission, service is accomplished through the involvement of faculty and students in academic, professional, and community service, with an emphasis on underserved, vulnerable populations and health disparities. The Department faculty provides leadership by serving as experts and role models in nursing education, practice, and scholarship. The Department faculty and students participate in the shared governance structure of the University by serving on university, college, and departmental committees.
The Department of Nursing values the continual professional development of its faculty and students through education, scholarship, and service. This development builds upon theories, principles, and the concepts of professional nursing, client, environment, health, and learning.
The Department of Nursing believes that Professional Nursing is a science and an art with core values that include caring, altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, social justice, and respect and acceptance of diversity. Nursing’s unique body of knowledge incorporates life experiences, and builds upon theories and principles from the liberal arts and sciences, as well as from nursing science, practice, and scholarship. The faculty believe that nursing is an autonomous and collaborative discipline that practices within a framework of ethical and professional standards. As members of a practice discipline, nurses provide care in a variety of roles to clients in diverse settings, such as in the role of care provider, designer, manager, and coordinator of care to clients. As members of a profession, nurses have a commitment to professional development and life-long learning. At the master’s level, nurses are prepared for advanced roles as nurse educator, leader, and clinician.. At the doctorate level, nurses implement advanced roles as clinician, scholar, leaders, consultants, and policy makers as system level change agents.
Through the use of critical thinking, therapeutic communication, and technical skills, nurses, using systematic approaches, assist clients in meeting health care needs. At the undergraduate level, professional nurses are prepared to assess health care needs, to design nursing care, to provide, manage, and evaluate health care. Building upon undergraduate education, graduate programs prepare professional nurses for advanced nursing roles as family nurse practitioners and nurse educators. Nurse educators facilitate the teaching-learning process of individuals and groups in a variety of settings. Family nurse practitioners provide primary care across the life span. At the doctorate level, advanced practice nurses are able to work with individual health concerns, as well as diverse population groups and systems to promote improved health outcomes.
Clients, as living systems, are unique holistic beings composed of physiological, psychological, spiritual, social, and cultural dimensions that are in continuous interaction with the environment. Individuals have inherent dignity and self-worth and are in a continuous state of growth and development across the life span. Individuals are self-determining, however, each individual functions interdependently with other individuals, families, and communities. Although vulnerable to illness and disease, clients have the potential capacity to achieve health literacy, reduce risk, prevent disease, promote health, and to manage their internal and external environments.
The environment includes everything that impacts the client. The environment has physiological, psychological, spiritual, social, and cultural dimensions that interact with the client and can have individual, as well as global implications for health and health care. Nurses engage in therapeutic nursing interventions to manage, modify, and manipulate the internal and external environmental dimensions to promote optimal health, and prevent illness and disease. The professional nurse has an understanding of health care systems and policies that impact the client’s environments, including information technology.
Health is a description of the holistic, dynamic, multidimensional optimal state of the client. Health is composed of interacting genetic, physiological, psychological, spiritual, social, and cultural dimensions and is a result of the individual’s constant interaction with the environment. Disease, as a component of health, is a manifestation of these client-environment interactions. Nurses assist clients to restore, maintain and promote health, to prevent and treat illness and disease, and when death is imminent, to support dying with dignity.
Learning is a dynamic interactive process involving communication and critical thinking that builds upon previous experiences and knowledge. Learning occurs at different rates for individuals, and implies a shared responsibility between the learner and the educator. Faculty recognize the unique needs of the learner. Acting as facilitator and catalyst in the learning process, faculty foster the development of professional and technological skills, critical thinking, and lifelong learning, and support the internalization of professional values.