Babson Park, Florida
Webber International University has been granted approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges and the Florida Board of Nursing to offer a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree program. The University has begun accepting applications for students to start their pre-nursing coursework beginning in January of 2022. The University has been approved for two cohort starts each academic year — one cohort of 24 students in the Fall and another cohort of 24 students in the Spring. The first cohort of nursing students will be admitted into the core of the nursing program in August 2022, wherein students take upper division nursing courses.
Students meeting all the requirements of the four-year program will earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree and be eligible to sit for the NCLEX-RN® exam. A registered nurse license will be awarded by the Florida Board of Nursing to graduates who successfully pass the NCLEX-RN® exam and satisfactorily meet all other Board of Nursing licensure requirements. While students must complete their last 72 credits of upper-level classes at Webber, up to 50 credits of approved lower-level general education and prerequisite work may be transferred from accredited colleges or universities.
Said Dr. H. Keith Wade, the University’s President and CEO, “a recent Nursing Times article cited a US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimate that 11 million new nurses will be needed. While we have always quite intentionally offered a very limited number of degrees — you simply cannot be good at everything — we have recently added a few carefully selected programs in health sciences which are very much in demand by employers and within the scope of things we can do very well.”
The process to offering the BSN has been a long one — over two years since the first application was made — involving all of Webber’s academic leadership team. Dr. Carol Daniel, the program’s Chief Nursing Administrator/Director will lead this program for the University. Dr. Daniel joined the University in the Fall of 2020. Jennifer Cranor joined the University in the Spring of 2021 as the Clinical Coordinator; both are licensed RNs.
Established in 1927 by Roger Babson as the first college chartered under Florida’s then new charitable and educational laws, and America’s second school of business for women, Webber’s campuses in Babson Park, FL (residential); Charleston, SC; Charlotte, NC; Columbia, SC; Laurinburg, NC (residential); Miami Lakes, FL (opening 2021); Pinehurst, NC; and West Palm Beach, FL (opening 2021) now educate men and women from over 50 different nations. Degrees are offered at the associates, bachelors, and masters level through traditional day, accelerated night and weekend, and entirely on-line formats. Joining Webber as a branch campus in 2011, St. Andrews University is a Presbyterian related, comprehensive liberal arts school tracing its roots back to 1896.
The University features highly qualified faculty, highly engaged staff, small class size, and a wide array of intercollegiate sports and other extracurricular activities. The University has been recognized as a US News and World Reports Best Regional Colleges: South, a Princeton Review Best Southeastern College, has earned Petersons’ top marks for academics, value and community, and has been designated a Military Friendly School.