So relieved, in fact, that she took the spring semester off in order to take advantage of the new offerings. As she has moved through the program, she constantly sees other students leave, having to uproot their lives in order to stay in the nursing program. This was a fear expressed by the many non-traditional students in the nursing program, Acord said, citing several letters that she had received on the subject. These stories are not new to UM pre-nursing advisor Kate Delaney, who said she has heard horror stories throughout the nine years she has been an advisor. Of the 120 students in the UM nursing program, half are non-traditional students who already have homes and professional careers in Missoula, she said.
Nursing is a very mature major.
Because of a bureaucratic oversight, these four courses aren't offered at the UM, Delaney said. Yet at the same time, Missoula has the large clinical sites like Saint Patrick Hospital needed to finish the program and MSU doesn't, so students have had to relocate to Bozeman for one semester, take those classes, and then return to Missoula to finish the professional program. After nine years I'm like a loony toon over this. Acord said the MSU program is one of the largest in the nation, drawing students from all over the country. She went on to say that this is an attempt to get those numbers down, causing less stress and strain on the students.