The accelerated master’s degree in nursing program at the Georgia Health Sciences University, formerly the Medical College of Georgia, has seen its minority student enrollment grow from just a smattering when it launched in 2006 to 16 percent last fall.
“In the very first class, I think we had one male, two African-American females …,” recalls Annette Bourgault, director of the Clinical Nursing Leader program.
Incremental increases in minority student enrollment — GHSU’s nursing program currently enrolls 18 minority students, compared with eight in 2008 — are due, in part, to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s New Careers in Nursing (NCIN) program.