A Student Asks a Question--will anyone answer? Mr Lucy? Mme Provost? Ms Zollar?

At the Student Government Association meeting last week, interim president Mr Lucy and CSU Board member Nikki Zollar sat in sackcloth and ashes and beat their breasts in a great show of penitence about how much they valued the CSU students and how sorry they were that the students were upset at the Trustees' dismissal of the recent CSU president Thomas Calhoun. Ms Zollar made a great display of sharing the students' pain. Mr Lucy just wants everyone to trust him in this difficult time for CSU. [In case you missed it, for comic relief, Sabrina Land was on hand chasing away videographers and photographers who were at the meeting...]

Well Ms Zollar and Mr Lucy, here's your chance to show some accountability to a student.

A few days ago a CSU Nursing student posted the following comment on the blogpost below, "September Review." The student had some sharp observations and significant questions about the nursing program so I'm re-posting the comment here in the hope that it garners some attention. I hope MissChem will continue to press the president, the provost and the board of trustees for the answers to her questions.

After reading this nursing student's cri de coeur one gets the feeling that it may not be the faculty alone who think it is time for a forensic audit.

From MissChem, Oct 3, 2016:

I'm a senior nursing student and we are being charged $175/credit hour for nursing fees. It's not $2500 per year. This is what I've been charged so far:

Fall 2015: $2,100

Spring 2016: $2,450

Fall 2016: $2,625

There were approximately 25-43 students per nursing class. (Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors...) Do the math.

We were told this money would go to improving the nursing resource lab. Lies!!!!! We have clinical simulators that we've never used because no one in the department knows how to use them, and they won't let us touch them. Last Friday, some students and a few faculty started "cleaning out" our nursing lab. Some of the stuff in there was so old, one of our instructors said to throw it away because it was against Joint Commission standards and banned in healthcare.

We have a nursing computer lab that we rarely have access to because there's nobody to "watch us" while we're in there. We're expected to help save people's lives but we can't be trusted to use a computer lab designated for us.

The nursing website...not being maintained at all! Scholarships from 2009 still there. This is a research institution yet no research is being done in this department, nor are there any active grants.

We just started clinical in the sixth week of an eight week course due to the lack of malpractice insurance. The department chairperson told us it was paid in June but the university didn't have the "certificate in hand." The clinical site surely won't want to hire us after graduation because they already associate CSU with unprofessionalism.

Our class was never provided a nursing handbook but they enforce policies from a handbook we don't have, and when we ask for it...crickets. They change grading criteria AFTER the class has ended and retroactively fail people, which is just a way to generate more money because then people register for a mandatory remedial course.

They refused to grant credits as laid out in the course catalog for CNAs, LPNs, and RNs that enter the program, so they essentially made people take classes they would have received credit for. And why is the university offering an unaccredited MSN program?

Our department chairperson is also running the Wellness Center, one of only 2 employees that have been with CSU for at least 2 years. All the faculty have left the university. We have 3 nursing faculty that instruct for the entire department.

And these are just a FEW of the shenanigans going on in that department. Unfortunately, we don't have anyone to turn to because everyone is either crooked or too scared to advocate for us. Hurry up May 11, 2017!!!!!