Cruise With Northern Alumni and Friends

JENNY DAVIDSON

Managing Editor

The Northern Oklahoma College Alumni & Friends will take a seven-day cruise to the beautiful ports of Canada and New England this autumn.

They will view the fall foliage in ports such as Halifax, Nova Scotia; Saint John, New Brunswick (Bay of Fundy); Boston, Mass.; and Portland, Maine.

Sheri Snyder, vice president Development and Community Relations for Northern Oklahoma College, and Kirby Tickel, director Northern Oklahoma College Alumni & Friends Association, in conjunction with the Northern Oklahoma College Foundation, Inc., recently announced they are partnering with Cruises and More in Ponca City.

Cruises and More Travel is owned by Joyce and Larry Davis of Nardin, Okla., and is operated by Joyce and her staff.

Joyce is a certified travel consultant and has been active in the travel industry for over 28 years. As a travel agent, she organizes and escorts group trips, has taught travel classes at the college level, and now operates Cruises and More on a daily basis.

Northern and Cruises and More are working together to offer some exciting trips at the best value, while still offering quality, safety and expert guidance.

Northern and Cruises and More will begin their partnership with a New England Fall Foliage cruise departing from New York City. This trip will include air, the cruise, and an optional two-night pre-cruise package so the group can see a Broadway show and do some sightseeing.

For more information, contact Cruises and More at info@cruisesandmore.com or 580.765.4600.

Northern’s Nursing Program Requirements are Rigorous

KRIS OSBURN

Staff Writer

 

Northern Oklahoma College’s nursing program is hard to get into, between the waiting list and the admissions standards. Its benefits, however, outweigh the sacrifice, administrators say. There’s almost always a guarantee of employment for a registered nurse, and they’ll likely earn at least a baseline salary of $30,000 and benefits. And there has always been a high demand for nurses.

Much of the demand for nurses stems from an aging population. As medical technology advances and quality of life improves for most Americans, people begin to live longer. And with this aging populace, there are certainly a number of nurses retiring, leaving plenty of spaces to fill. 

“The need for nursing is going to rise, and if we can make the field more attractive to our youth, then we could continue to expand the program,” said NOC Enid nursing instructor Jeanine Deterding.  

Expansion seems almost inevitable for Northern’s nursing program. The waiting list for the NOC nursing program is nearly one and a half times its available slots. One reason for this is the need for qualified personnel.  

With more instructors, NOC could admit 100 nursing students per year. Nurses can often make more money as an RN at a hospital than they can teaching at a college. And at some point, the local hospitals will reach their limit for students the can have working in their facilities. 

Nursing instructors say one benefit to working in the nursing field is the variety of positions available. As an RN, nurses can choose to work in surgery, home health, long term care, ICU, post-cardiac, among others.  

This variety helps ensure that almost anyone can find a job they’re comfortable with depending one if they are more people-oriented or cerebral, instructors said. The field is already lucrative, but it has pitfalls, such as long shifts and burnout.

Northern’s success rate – the number of graduated student who actually receive their nursing registration – is one of the highest in the state. That fact, too, adds to the long waiting list.  “We’re really pleased with the success rate of the program,” said NOC Enid nursing instructor Christa Ritz.  

Admissions requirements into Northern’s nursing program are rigorous. So, though most applicants eventually make it through the program, it often takes time to meet the requirements.

The criteria for acceptance compass scores and ACT scores are also tied to applicants’ rankings on the waiting list. So, some who meet all the requirements, may be kept on the waiting list for yet another year if they didn’t rank high enough on the admissions list.

Because applications are accepted annually, many applicants are not yet qualified to be admitted to the program, but they have the year to meet the requirements.  

The 100 slots are distributed to the three NOC campuses based on the number of applications to each. Right now, the Enid campus is using 52 of the 100 slots.