WGU Nursing Faculty Coordinator Recognized with Prestigious Award

Mary Harper Wins Belinda E. Puetz Award for Professional Nursing Development

SALT LAKE CITY, Aug. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mary G. Harper, Ph.D., RN-BC, Clinical Faculty Coordinator at nonprofit, online Western Governors University, has received the Belinda E. Puetz Award for Nursing Professional Development. Dr. Harper, who leads the clinical faculty for WGU's innovative B.S. in Nursing Prelicensure Program, was recognized at the annual national convention of the National Nursing Staff Development Organization (NNSDO) held in Chicago in July. The Puetz Award, named after the founder of NNSDO, is the highest national award for the specialty of Nursing Professional Development and recognizes outstanding contributions to the specialty.

Western Governors University's multistate prelicensure BSN program, one of the university's several online nursing programs, uses staff nurses to coach nursing students in the clinical setting during clinical intensives. As the Clinical Faculty Coordinator, Dr. Harper teaches staff nurses how to teach students in the clinical setting. She co-authored a manuscript describing this unique academic-service partnership entitled Building An Educational Model that Promotes Competence through Innovation that has been accepted for publication in the NLN Journal, Nursing Education Perspectives.

Dr. Harper has demonstrated leadership in the specialty of Nursing Professional Development (NPD).  Certified in NPD, she has served two terms as a Director on the Board of Directors for NNSDO. In addition, she represents NNSDO on the American Nurses Association (ANA) Congress for Nursing Practice and Economics and serves on the Congress' Workgroup for Education. She was on the task force that revised the NPD Scope and Standards in 2010, co-chairing the subcommittee that revised the model of NPD practice. As a member of this task force, she presented the revisions in the scope and standards to national groups including NNSDO, the National League for Nursing (NLN), and the Professional Nurse Educators Group (PNEG). She also contributed a chapter to the Core Curriculum for Nurses in Staff Development, 3rd Edition and has been named a section editor for the fourth edition.  Recently, she was selected as an instructor for the NNSDO NPD Certification Review Course.

WGU's B.S. in Nursing (Prelicensure) program is the nation's first competency-based, online bachelor's degree program designed to prepare students for initial licensure as registered nurses. The CCNE-approved online nursing degree combines WGU's competency-based academic approach with clinical simulations and clinical intensives supervised by onsite clinical coaches and instructors serving as WGU adjunct faculty. More than 100 students are currently enrolled in the program, which is currently operating at select locations in California and Texas and is scheduled to expand to Florida, Indiana, and Utah in the next six months.

This innovative program was developed by nonprofit WGU in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor, the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the Texas Workforce Commission, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Utah Department of Workforce Services, and major healthcare partners, including Cedars Sinai Medical Center, HCA, Kaiser Permanente, Catholic Healthcare West, and Tenet Healthcare. This partnership was created to address the growing shortage of registered nurses by making quality nursing education more accessible. For more information regarding the program, go to http://www.wgu.edu/RN, or call 1-866-225-5948.

About Western Governors University (WGU)

"[WGU is] the best relatively cheap university you've never heard of."– TIME magazine

Featured on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, WGU is the only university in the U.S. offering competency-based degree programs and the only nonprofit, fully online university with students in all 50 states. WGU offers degree programs in Business, Education, Information Technology, and Healthcare Professions, including Nursing. Founded by 19 U.S. governors in 1997, WGU's mission is to increase access to quality higher education. Since it opened its virtual doors in 1999, the university has grown into a national institution, serving more than 25,000 students. WGU is self-sustaining on tuition, and does not rely on state or national support to fund its operations.  

WGU is regionally accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities and nationally accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council (DETC). WGU nursing programs, which have nearly 2,500 students nationwide, have been accredited by the Commission for Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE). WGU's Teachers College is the first and only exclusively online provider of teacher education to receive accreditation from the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE).

The university has earned the support of more than 20 leading corporations and foundations. They include institutions such as AT&T, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Dell, the Eli Lilly Foundation, HCA, Hewlett-Packard, Lumina Foundation, Microsoft, Oracle, Qwest, SunGard Higher Education, and Zions Bank. More information is available at www.wgu.edu.

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SOURCE Western Governors University