Program Aims for More Nursing Education

A new nursing program at East Carolina University and four area community colleges aims to train new nurses in their home communities. The goal is to increase the number of nurses with bachelor's degrees - to meet the growing demand for highly-trained clinicians and administrators. Kelly Cleaton is recruiting students for the program. She says qualified applicants will pursue their associate's degrees at their local community college, and eventually get their baccalaureates from ECU.

Kelly Cleaton: Everybody's excited about the opportunity of first of all getting a bachelor's degree in four years and secondly the tuition savings, because instead of taking face-to-face courses at ECU the students will be taking online courses.

In its first year, the program aims to take five students each from Beaufort County, Lenoir, Pitt, and Roanoake-Chowan community colleges. Applications are due March first.