A professional nursing education encourages the development of values, and provides the experiences designed to promote responsible citizenship. A professional nursing education also provides an enriching stimulus that promotes student interest in advance studies. The faculty also believes that learning is a lifelong process that is independent and self-initiated, and results in potential or actual changes in behavior. Although faculty and students share the responsibility for creating an educational climate that is conducive to learning and encourages self-direction and inquiry, students must assume responsibility for their own learning. As a member of the State University System of Florida, the School of Nursing at Florida International University is committed to policies of non-discrimination with respect to race, color, creed, age, handicap, sex, or national origin in the admission process.
Humans are open systems who interact, interrelate, and are interdependent with the environment.
Throughout the life span, humans strive to achieve optimal well-being through an interactive process between internal an external environments utilizing adaptation. Adaptation is a response to stressors that impact humans' physiological, psychosocial, developmental, cultural, and spiritual dimensions. Health is an individually perceived dynamic state of well-being and is conditioned by the human's ability to adapt to internal and external environmental stressors. Health is characterized by an integrated physiological, psychosocial, developmental, cultural, and spiritual functioning resulting in optimal use of resources to minimize health alternations. Environment is composed of two components, the internal and external systems.