DELHI _ The first four graduates of the SUNY Delhi distance-learning nursing program will receive their diplomas and meet their teachers at commencement Saturday.
Dr. Mary Pat Lewis, the college's Nursing and Allied Health Department chairwoman, said faculty members will fly from Israel, Illinois and Texas to meet students with whom they have been working online for a year and a half.
A reception will be at 11 a.m.
"We literally have a faculty that is located all over the world," Lewis said Tuesday.
Three of the four graduates are area women who are nurses and working mothers.
Lewis said the BSN students work at their own pace. Students can sign up for the program every seven weeks. There will be more than 150 nurses enrolled by this summer, each seeking a bachelor of nursing science degree.
"It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger," Lewis said. "Students can enter anytime. They don't have to wait for a specific class to come up; they know they are always going to be available."
To qualify for the program, applicants must be registered nurses who have been working in the field for at least a year. Lewis said the degree makes the graduates eligible for expanded job opportunities and enables them to pursue advanced degrees.
The first graduates are Bridget DeMott, of Unadilla, Carolyn Marie Cole, of South Kortright, Caralisa Stever, of Deposit, and Chirise Taylor, of Narrowsburg.
Stever, 45, said she was thrilled when she heard SUNY Delhi had instituted the program. It allowed her to get her bachelor's degree in a year, which wouldn't have happened in a traditional program.
"My goal is moving forward to get my master's degree and become a nurse practitioner," Stever said Tuesday.
Stever said it was her first time taking Internet courses.
"Online certainly was different from on ground," Stever said. "It was a fabulous program."
Cole, 47, said she is working for the state as a community health nurse and is also a hospice nurse. She hopes to get her master's in education so she can teach nursing.
"I could not have done this without the support of my husband and children," Cole said as she talked about finding time to do class work online.
Cole said she found learning online forced her to concentrate, and she felt she retained more than she did in a traditional college setting.
Cole said she is an alumna of SUNY Delhi and is looking forward to attending graduation because her family from Connecticut is coming to the ceremony.
DeMott, 36, is a campus nurse at BOCES. She said she heard about Delhi's BSN program from someone at work and was happy to have found a way to go back to school while she continued working.
"I had never taken an online course, but I absolutely love it," DeMott said. "It's very different not having the instructors and classmates right beside you where you can see them, but it worked out very, very well and it was so convenient."
She said she is going to take a break from school for a while to spend time with her family, but then she hopes to go on for her master's and complete the degree online.
DeMott said she found she had to be "dedicated, determined and disciplined" but felt the program was excellent in every way.
"The instructors are amazing," Demott said. "I have been talking to them for over a year so I feel like I already know them, but I can't wait to meet them."
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