Announcement

West Virginia Wesleyan is pleased to announce that the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission has granted the master's nursing program initial accreditation at its meeting March 1-2, 2012. The next scheduled evaluation visit will be in Fall 2016.


Master of Science in Nursing

Message from the Program Director:

Welcome to our website! Whether you are a prospective student, faculty colleague, friend or alumnus, I appreciate your interest in our graduate programs. Our Master of Science in Nursing program with concentrations in Nursing Education and Nursing Administration provides education in keeping with the college’s mission and traditions of excellence. Classes are small and intimate, and faculty and students collaborate as colleagues to help all learners achieve their personal career goals.

Both the Nursing Education and Nursing Administration concentrations are 36 credit hours in length and may be completed in a 16 month intensive program or part-time over several years. The classes are offered during late afternoons and evenings to facilitate scheduling for employed MSN students, and some portions of courses will also be offered online. Because the program is flexible, students can plan their own schedule and choose the pace of study. Undergraduate Health Assessment and Statistics are pre-requisites for two required courses. The MSN program is currently in the candidacy process, a pre-requisite step toward formal review for NLNAC initial accreditation by the National League for Nursing Accreditation Commission.

We are now also offering two Advanced Practice Nursing Concentrations - Nurse-Midwifery and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner - through a collaboration with Shenandoah University. Graduate students will receive a Master of Science in Nursing degree from West Virginia Wesleyan and a Certificate of Endorsement in Nurse-Midwifery or Certificate in Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner from Shenandoah University.

Nurse-Midwifery is an essential element of comprehensive health care that should be made available for all women. This collaborative program ensures the supply of nurse-midwives by providing opportunities for graduate nursing students to receive nurse-midwifery education while still attending their home institutions. After completion of graduate core courses at West Virginia Wesleyan, the student will enroll at Shenandoah University for midwifery specialty courses. Didactic material is taught using face-to-face, online and low-residency pedagogies while clinical experiences are arranged in students’ home communities. Following completion of both curricula, students may sit for the national certification examination.

Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners (PMHNP) are educationally prepared to provide a full range of psychiatric services, including the delivery of primary mental health care services. Students in this program will complete their graduate core course work at West Virginia Wesleyan and their PMHNP coursework at Shenandoah University with clinical experiences arranged in their home communities. Following completion of both curricula, students may sit for national certification examinations as Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners.

We are committed to preparing our students to embrace a myriad of opportunities as nursing continues to be a "growth profession."  Increasingly, nursing is a discipline in which people may have multiple varied careers over a lifetime without ever leaving the profession. With advanced degrees, you can be a teacher of nursing in a college, university, or hospital-based nursing education departments, or a nurse executive in virtually any kind of health care-related entity, or a nurse researcher in a university or health-related corporation or and advanced practice nurse of midwifery or psychiatric mental health services. Our broad-based MSN curriculum creates graduates with multiple skills to advance the science of nursing education, nursing administration or advanced practice nursing while preparing you for tomorrow’s opportunity in nursing.

Please contact me by telephone or email to share comments and questions or to arrange a visit in person. We invite you to join us in ensuring that people have the highest quality health care possible from outstanding nurse leaders.

With warm regards,

Dr. Sue Leight
Susan B. Leight, EdD, FNP-BC, FAANP
Associate Professor and Director, MSN Program
(304) 473-8228

leight@wvwc.edu