{"id":30165,"date":"2016-11-04T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.tarleton.edu\/news\/a-legacy-of-caring-and-excellence-tarleton-celebrates-40-years-of-nursing\/"},"modified":"2022-05-10T08:26:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-10T14:26:31","slug":"a-legacy-of-caring-and-excellence-tarleton-celebrates-40-years-of-nursing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/a-legacy-of-caring-and-excellence-tarleton-celebrates-40-years-of-nursing\/","title":{"rendered":"A Legacy of Caring and Excellence: Tarleton celebrates 40 years of nursing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Legacy of Caring and Excellence<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, November 4, 2016<\/p>\n\n\n\n

STEPHENVILLE, Texas\u2014Tarleton State University today celebrates 40 years of nursing\u2014A Legacy of Caring and Excellence<\/em>\u2014honoring those who helped jumpstart the program in the early 1970s as well as current and past faculty and staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a momentous occasion and a testament to the vision of longtime Stephenville physician and university alumnus Dr. Vance Terrell and the persistence of Drs. Robert Fain and Lamar Johanson,\u201d said Tarleton President F. Dominic Dottavio. \u201cSince 1976, Tarleton\u2019s nursing program has helped meet North Texas\u2019 need for highly-qualified registered nurses. If the past is prologue, the future for the nursing program is extremely bright.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of spring 2016, Tarleton boasts more than 1,700 nursing graduates\u2014740 with an associate\u2019s degree, 1,064 with a bachelor\u2019s and 11 with a master\u2019s. Many of these serve in rural hospitals and clinics throughout North Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While area residents and physicians\u2014like Terrell\u2014recognized the need for a nursing program at Tarleton in the early \u201970s, convincing the Texas Board of Nursing and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) wasn\u2019t easy. In fact, the nursing board denied the university\u2019s proposal three times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was unprecedented for the Texas Board of Nursing to approve a degree program in a rural county without access to a large hospital for students to complete their clinical experiences,\u201d explained Dr. Elaine Evans, head of Tarleton\u2019s Nursing Department from 1989 through 2013, \u201cbut, with each denial, Drs. Terrell, Fain and Johanson became more determined that Tarleton would have a program to help meet the area\u2019s critical shortage of registered nurses.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their efforts paid off in 1976 with the go-ahead for Tarleton to offer an associate\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo other degree program or endorsement has had a greater impact on the residents of the Cross Timbers Region than Tarleton\u2019s nursing program,\u201d said Johanson, head of the university\u2019s Department of Biological Sciences in 1976, later dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and namesake of the Tarleton science building. \u201cThe quality of health care at all levels has been greatly elevated, and all our citizens have benefited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was extremely fortunate to be in a position to help Dr. Fain (then dean of Tarleton\u2019s College of Arts and Sciences and later provost and vice president of academic affairs) do the necessary legwork to get the nursing program approved,\u201d Johanson added. \u201cEstablishing the nursing program was a very satisfying experience and a highlight for both our academic careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did the legwork, but we should never forget that Dr. Vance Terrell was the driving force and the spirit to establish the program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four administrators have led Tarleton\u2019s nursing program since its beginning, and the program has been housed in four locations on the Stephenville campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When nursing classes started in 1976, the program was located in a converted engineering lab on the third floor of the old science building\u2014today\u2019s Mathematics Building. In 1983, the program moved to what now serves as Tarleton\u2019s Welcome Center on the corner of Washington and McIlhaney streets and, from 1996 to 2010, the program took up much of the Tarleton Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The program\u2019s current home\u2014the 55,000-square-foot, three-story Nursing Building\u2014was funded with $23.4 million in tuition revenue bonds and includes a fully-equipped simulation lab complete with state-of-the-art equipment and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Evans\u00ad\u2014who initiated programs at Tarleton-Fort Worth and Tarleton-Waco and led development of the bachelor\u2019s degree in nursing program\u2014and Dr. Susan Rugari, current head of Tarleton\u2019s Nursing Department, credited with developing Tarleton\u2019s graduate program in nursing, other administrators are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Faye Stevenson<\/strong> (1975-1983) – led development of the associate\u2019s degree program; and
\u2022 Patricia Egdorf<\/strong> (1983-1989) – improved the associate\u2019s degree program leading to a first-time licensing exam pass rate of 100 percent for five consecutive years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Previously part of Tarleton\u2019s College of Science and Technology, the nursing program moved to the university\u2019s new College of Health Sciences and Human Services established this past spring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To learn more about Tarleton\u2019s Nursing Program, visit www.tarleton.edu\/nursing<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tarleton, a member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven educational experience marked by academic innovation and exemplary service, and dedicated to transforming students into tomorrow\u2019s professional leaders. With campuses in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian and online, Tarleton engages with its communities to provide real-world learning experiences and to address societal needs while maintaining its core values of integrity, leadership, tradition, civility, excellence and service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact: Dr. Susan Rugari, Head of the Department of Nursing
254-968-9717
rugari@tarleton.edu<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tarleton State University today celebrates 40 years of nursing—A Legacy of Caring and Excellence<\/em>—honoring those who helped jumpstart the program in the early 1970s as well as current and past faculty and staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":30168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423,427],"tags":[430,439],"class_list":["post-30165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics-research","category-science-health","tag-academic-affairs","tag-division-of-health-sciences"],"acf":{"image":false},"author_meta":{"display_name":"keegan","author_link":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/author\/keegan-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-2\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/65\/2021\/11\/image-2018-300x200.jpg","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Academics & Research<\/a>","Science & Health<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academics & Research<\/span>","Science & Health<\/span>"]},"tags":{"linked":["Academic Affairs<\/a>","Division of Health Sciences<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Academic Affairs<\/span>","Division of Health Sciences<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":0,"relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 9 years ago","modified":"Updated 4 years ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on November 4, 2016","modified":"Updated on May 10, 2022"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on November 4, 2016 12:00 am","modified":"Updated on May 10, 2022 8:26 am"},"featured_img_caption":"\"Legacy of Caring & Excellence, Celebrating 40 years of Nursing since 1976.\"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarleton.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}