College of Nursing Receives CASN Accreditation
As the College of Nursing embarked upon the creation of a new undergraduate education program, it knew the curriculum must, at a minimum, meet the requirements of the Saskatchewan Registered Nurses Association (SRNA), but it wanted to go one step further and receive accreditation, a recognized national standard of excellence, from the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing (CASN), the accrediting body for nursing education in Canada.
Accreditation promotes excellence and is recognized worldwide as an important, objective method to assess professional education programs (CASN, 2014). “The process of accreditation required a great deal of time and resources, but to have received CASN accreditation is an outstanding accomplishment for our college,” said Acting Dean Dr. Lois Berry. “CASN accreditation helps us identify our strengths and areas where we are leaders on the national nursing education scene, while at the same time, it supports continuous quality improvement, as it identifies areas requiring development or modification to ensure we are offering the best possible program to our students.”
The CASN accreditation program outlines parameters of quality and standards in not only the curriculum itself, but also in areas of leadership, innovation, scholarship and research, while incorporating flexibility to accommodate organizational structure. “Our college is quite complicated and a ‘one size fits all approach’ definitely doesn’t work for us,” said Berry. “We have been expanding our undergraduate program offerings across Saskatchewan and every site is a little different. In order to evaluate our program it its entirety, the CASN accreditation team visited our five sites, met with students, staff and faculty, as well as Mayors and community members while visiting our northern sites. Even though the accreditors noted each site is different, receiving the maximum seven year CASN accreditation for the undergraduate program, gives us confidence our students are receiving a quality nursing education, no matter where they live. By earning the CASN accreditation, we have validated the excellence of our program for students, faculty, staff, the University of Saskatchewan and the communities in which we are located.”