History is Made at Student Orientation

For the first time in the history of the college, new students were welcomed simultaneously across all sites including Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert, La Ronge and Île-à-la-Crosse. By using videoconferencing, all new 2nd year students were brought together virtually in one room with Dean Lorna Butler, Associate Deans Lois Berry, Hope Bilinski, Lynn Jansen and Phil Woods, Academic Advisor and Admissions Officer Rachelle Smith and their fellow classmates. "Our college tries hard to use the newest technology to deliver the best possible programming to our students. Using this technology to bring the new students together from across the province at orientation was a milestone for the college and I couldn’t be more pleased with how the day went", said Dean Lorna Butler.

Not only was a new technology utilized for the first time on September 5th, but the College of Nursing welcomed the first students of the new BSN program. Historically, the U of S nursing program was offered as a partnership with the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology (SIAST) and the First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) in the Nursing Education Program of Saskatchewan (NEPS). This model changed in February 2009 when the decision was made by the Government of Saskatchewan to increase the number of nursing student seats to 690 and to divide these seats equally among two providers - the U of S, and a partnership between the University of Regina (U of R) and SIAST.

Over the past couple of years, the U of S College of Nursing developed the new, non-direct entry, four year BSN degree program, consisting of a pre-professional first year, followed by three years of nursing education. The new undergraduate program is offered in Saskatoon, Regina, Prince Albert and northern Saskatchewan. Welcome to the first students of the new U of S College of Nursing BSN program - the Class of 2015!

For more information on the new program, please click here.