USCB Beaufort Campus Will Offer a Nursing Honors Residential Learning Community
Thursday, August 17th, 2017
The University of South Carolina Beaufort is introducing a new living, learning community for honors BSN nursing students on the Beaufort campus in the fall of 2018.
USCB is expanding residential housing on the Beaufort campus, thereby allowing students to live and learn together in a select nursing cohort that offers a common experience and keeps learners accountable to each other which is highly valued by students. The cohort structure offers students a unique support system. Students will be directly admitted to the cohort via a competitive entry process.
This cohort model has proven successful at universities across the country. Residential learning communities improve student engagement, develop a sense of community, improve retention rates, result in higher GPAs and help students complete degrees in a timely manner.
USCB is currently seeking proposals from private owners of housing facilities in the local Beaufort community for student housing to accommodate the Nursing cohort. The students will be within walking distance of the campus as well as shops, restaurants, the waterfront, parks, etc. Students’ first two years are spent on the Beaufort campus in preparation for completion of the BSN, the last two years of which are delivered on the Bluffton campus.
In addition to being in a residential learning community, this cohort will have planned learning experiences in the region, to accelerate their integration into the nursing profession. These enrichment experiences will promote inter-professional awareness and collegiality.
“We are excited about the innovation in nursing education offered on the Beaufort campus,” said Kimberly Dudas, interim dean of the school of the professions and department chair of nursing at USCB. “These students will have an early immersion into the nursing profession that has proven to be quite successful in socializing the student to the profession and promoting a sense of the value of nursing as a profession.”
A transition for this cohort will occur in the second semester of the sophomore year, with some classes held on the Beaufort campus and some on the Bluffton campus. The rest of the nursing BSN degree will be completed on the Bluffton campus and in clinical settings in the region.