Grant to fund spread of joint nurse-training model

SYRACUSE  —  A two-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation will help institutions across the state duplicate a joint nurse-training program between St. Joseph’s College of Nursing and Le Moyne College.

The Princeton, N.J.–based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded a two-year, $300,000 Academic Progression in Nursing grant to help spread the joint program’s model. St. Joseph’s and Le Moyne launched the program, called the Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing, in Syracuse in 2005.

It allows high-school graduates to earn both associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing in four years. It also allows them to sit for the National Council of State Boards of Nursing’s National Council Licensure Examination after three years.

The foundation grant will go toward data collection, outreach to new schools, and coordination with institutions that have already started putting in place similar joint-training programs. Similar programs have been launched in 18 other New York locations, according to Marianne Markowitz, dean of St. Joseph’s College of Nursing.

“We’re going to visit all of our partner schools, and we’ve already gotten requests from other schools,” she says. “We’re going to share lessons learned, we’re going to share our marketing strategies, the curriculum, the things we put in place to help our students.”

The Foundation of New York State Nurses, a not-for-profit organization that attempts to increase public knowledge of nursing, is administering the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funding. The funding will be channeled through the New York State Future of Nursing Action Coalition to help spread the Dual Degree Partnership in Nursing program model.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com