RN-BSN reaccreditation affirms top quality, standards of UHCL's program

April 20, 2022 | UHCL Staff

The Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, the nation's leading authority that provides specialized accreditation for all levels of nursing education programs in the U.S., has reaccredited University of Houston-Clear Lake's RN-BSN program.

Ryan Moore, who completed the RN-BSN program in 2019, said the program's national accreditation status was one of many reasons why he decided to enroll at UH-Clear Lake.

"I wanted more opportunity and having a BSN opens more doors," he said. "The future of nursing is going toward every nurse having a BSN. It makes me eligible to work at better hospitals."

Moore currently works at Kaplan Surgery Center, which is part of the Berkeley Eye Center. "I'm a peri-operative nurse, which means I'm in all phases of patient care," he said. "The preparation I received at UHCL was more than enough to do what I do."

He said that his professors had taught beyond just the nursing skills. "We learned to navigate the job search, inter-office politics, and also the managerial part," he said. "There is a whole world of nursing. I was very well prepared for everything because of this program."

"One factor that should be at the forefront of students desiring a nursing program is accreditation status," said Associate Professor of Nursing and Program Director Karen Alexander."At the most rudimentary level, accreditation is about quality control. ACEN accreditation, for our program, recognizes that we meet a set of standards and can be trusted to deliver high-quality education."

UHCL's nurse educators strive to do exactly that, she said. "We are here to do what nobody else will do, a way that nobody else can do. For us, it is to provide quality education and raise the bar of excellence in nursing delivery, management, and leadership," she said.

Moore said that he'd completed the program part time while continuing to work as a registered nurse. "I am currently working on my master's degree in nursing education at University of Houston," he said. "My ultimate career goal is to teach. I am a first-generation college student and I didn't get much support, so I started in a community college. That's why I'd like to help prepare nursing students, in the same way I was."

He said he was looking forward to moving ahead in his career in ways that wouldn't have been possible without his BSN. "This is the door that has opened everything else that will follow for me," he said. "Now I'm getting my master's degree. This could only happen because I got my BSN."

For more information about UHCL's RN-BSN program, go online.