The University of Wyoming’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) received national accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), providing students the ability to become nationally licensed in the field via the national licensing exam.
“Now that the doctorate degree is accredited, students in the program will be able to actually get a license to practice,” Hart said. “Graduates from an unaccredited program really don’t go anywhere because they can’t get a license to practice.”
Before the national accreditation, graduates of the DNP were ineligible to take the national licensing exam, and could only practice in the state of Wyoming. Now that the DNP is nationally accredited, students have the option of choosing careers as family psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners or family nurse practitioners within the nursing program.
Ann Marie Hart, Project Coordinator and Associate Professor of Health Sciences, said that the accreditation applies to this fall’s graduating class.
“The first graduating class of the program is going to be this December, and they will be the first accredited nursing graduates for the school.”
The accreditation process consisted of several studies on the DNP faculty and curriculum. A CCNE team came to the university to do on-site research on the program. As part of the research, CCNE met with students in the program and practitioners throughout the state to assess their clinical education and practitioner needs.
To prepare for this, UW’s DNP made improvements to the program starting in 2010.
“The nursing program started to develop new courses and hire new staff in 2010 so that we could become accredited and it is an on-going process to keep our accreditation for years to come,” Hart said.
This accreditation could attract more applicants to the program, Hart said.
“I believe we will be receiving more applicants for the programs now that we’re accredited considering that before no one really wanted to take the risk of the program never becoming accredited,” Hart said.
Tatum Teegarden, a UW junior majoring in nursing, said that the accreditation makes the DNP a more viable option after graduation.
“The nursing program has a lot of standards and is really difficult to get into,” said Teegarden. “But I’ll definitely be considering it now that the university is accredited.”
