ALBANY, GA – On March 1, RegisteredNursing.org .a nursing advocacy organization .released its 2019 Best RN Programs list. Albany Technical College’s Associate of Science (ASN) in Nursing (RN) program was ranked number seven out of 53 schools in Georgia analyzed by the organization. The ranking was based primarily on the student pass rates on the NCLEX-RN exam.
The NCLEX-RN exam is used by all state boards of nursing across the United States to help assess a student’s competency and is required for licensure. Also, many state boards of nursing use the total, overall NCLEX-RN pass rate for a school as one of the main ways to approve a school’s ability to provide a nursing education in the state. The pass rates are looked at as one of the best measures to determine a nursing program’s student preparedness.
Obtaining five years of information from 2014 to 2018, RegisteredNursing.org’s methodology began with collecting NCLEX-RN exam pass rates for all RN programs (ADN, BSN, Direct-Entry MSN) stateby state through several methods, including making a number of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Once the data was obtained, programs with the following characteristics were filtered out for ranking purposes:
- Programs that have closed or will be closing at the time of data collecting
- Programs with no pass rate data available for the previous one or two years, depending on the state and number of years of data available
- Programs with only one year of pass rates
Other colleges within the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG) ranked at the top of the 2019 list include: Wiregrass Georgia Technical College at number one; Chattahoochee Technical College at number three; Gwinnett Technical College at number eight; and Southeastern Technical College at number nine; and Augusta Technical College at number 18.
“To be voted as the top seven nursing program in the state of Georgia is truly an honor,” said Dr. Latrona Lanier, Chair of the ASN Program at Albany Tech. “We attribute this distinction to a devoted nursing faculty and staff, who are focused on ensuring student success. The credit also goes to our dedicated and hard-working students.”
“We provide individualized student learning in our program and it is this attention to detail that earned our nursing program this honor,” Dr. Lanier commented. “We are all thrilled to have this designation.”
Along with Program Director Dr. Lanier, there are four other full-time faculty members – Annette Holloway, Melissa Williams, Mary Ford, and Antonio Miller; two part-time adjunct instructors – Dr. Bianca Kierce and LaVicka Stewart; and ASN administrative assistant Beverly Grimsley.
Albany Tech started its RN program in 2013 with 24 students in the first cohort. In 2015, the first class graduated with a NCLEX-RN pass rate of 100 percent. Matthew Dennis, Albany Tech’s Deanof Healthcare Technology, commented, “Currently, there are 70 students in the college’s ASN program. The program has experienced record growth and expansion since it started and with the added faculty, the enrollment has almost tripled since 2013.”
For more information about the ASN program at Albany Technical College, contact Dr. Latrona Lanier at 229.430.3698 or email llanier@albanytech.edu.
To view the RegisteredNursing.org rankings for the state of Georgia please click on link: https://www.registerednursing.org/state/georgia/#rankings.
About Albany Technical College
A public postsecondary institution of the Technical College System of Georgia (TCSG), Albany Technical College provides technical education and training support for the evolving workforce needs of Southwest Georgia through traditional and online classroom settings. Albany Tech is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC). For more information about Albany Tech, go to www.albanytech.edu or become a fan on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AlbanyTech or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/AlbanyTech. You can also subscribe to our YouTube Channel by visiting www.youtube.com/albanytech1 .
About RegisteredNursing.org
RegisteredNursing.org is comprised of registered nurses who care deeply about the profession and provide the resources future nurses need to succeed. Their mission is to promote excellence in nursing through enabling future nurses with the tools they need to succeed. They help to bring those interested in nursing from the research phase to enrollment, to landing that first RN job and beyond. For more information about RegisteredNursing.org, visit them at RegisteredNursing.org.