The University of West Georgia Tanner Health System School of Nursing

The University Of West Georgia Tanner Health System School Of Nursing (THS SON) is a leader in the scholarship of teaching and learning through the empowerment of graduates and colleagues who exhibit the ability and courage to create quality caring in health care and educational systems.

One of America's front runners in this most rewarding of fields, The University of West Georgia Tanner Health System School of Nursing‘s mission is to exemplify academic excellence in a caring environment by providing quality undergraduate and graduate education to meet current and evolving health care needs within the global community. The faculty live this two-fold mission of academic excellence and caring through strong academic programs based on the philosophy of caring as the foundation for all interactions with each other, students, colleagues and patients. Over the last several years, the THS SON has distinguished itself for academic excellence and commitment to caring.

Outstanding faculty, students, curricula, clinical sites, classroom and laboratory spaces are all integral to THS SON. The state of the art building in Carrollton, completed in 2013, received the Innovation Award for Design and Technology from the University Systems of Georgia. The Newnan Center facility, a project made possible by collaboration between the Newnan Georgia Hospital Board, the city of Newnan Georgia, Coweta County Georgia and the UWG is well under way . Classes will be held there for the first time in 2015. Combined, the SON building in Carrollton and the SON spaces in the Newnan Center provide the ideal environment for preparing nurses for complexities of today's health care environment.

The School and Faculty offer four programs of study: a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (Pre-licensure), for those who do not have an RN licence; RN-BSN (RN to Bachelor's Program), for those with an RN licence seeking a BSN degree; Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) for students with BSN degrees; and Doctoral in Nursing Education (Ed.D.), for those with MSN degrees seeking a Doctoral of Education Degree in Nursing. Our programs are preparing the clinicians, leaders, researchers, and educators ready to meet the health care needs of society for years to come.

The BSN pre-licensure undergraduate program features an innovative concept based curriculum with excellent outcomes. Admission to the pre-licensure program is competitive, with those admitted having overall mean grade point averages of 3.5 or higher. Our RN to BSN program is a strong, student friendly, on-line program dedicated to supporting nurses returning to school. The RN to BSN program can be completed in two semesters of professional study once core courses are satisfied.

The US News &World Report ranked UWG's online graduate nursing program the top on line program in Georgia in 2014. Our graduate students are supported financially in many ways including loans from the Health Resources and Services Administration Nurse Faculty Loan Program, and grants sponsored by the University Systems of Georgia including the Supporting Technology Enhanced PhD Studies (STEPS)program and the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).

The MSN program has three curricular tracks-clinical nurse leader, health service administration and nurse educator. Our MSN graduates are leaders in education and in health care across the state and south east. The THS SON admitted its third cohort of EdD in Nursing Education students in fall of 2014. As the only program of this type in Georgia and one of only 7 such programs in the nation, this innovative program is designed to address the nationwide shortage of nursing faculty.

In 2013, UWG received a significant pledge from Tanner Health System (THS) for the naming of the School of Nursing, the largest single commitment in the university's history. The THS and the THS SON are engaged in developing an academic – practice partnership. Partnerships of this type are being created throughout the United States in response to the increasing demands on the health care system to provide effective, accessible and affordable care. Further, the THS SON enjoys clinical affiliations with over 150 health care clinical agencies.

THS SON received a significant competitive grant from the University Systems of Georgia to establish a Center for Nursing Scholarship. The center is aimed at increasing the infrastructural support for faculty development of scholarship in all of its forms-research, teaching/learning, service and practice. Even though this initiative is in its early stages, it has helped support a number of faculty to write, present and publish papers on a wide range of scholarly topics and attend professional conferences at venues all across the country.

The faculty and staff, with the leadership of a new university president and school of nursing dean, are actively planning for the future through the development of a strategic plan that outlines a bold vision for the THS SON for years to come. The University Of West Georgia Tanner Health System School Of Nursing has been able to consistently deliver quality, high-value nursing education to fully justify its position among the Great Nursing Schools of America.