BY Jackie O’rourke
Asst. News Editor
Recently, the Dr. Susan L. Davis R.N. & Richard J. Henley College of Nursing at Sacred Heart University has made a significant change to its curriculum and system of testing. Now, all nursing students must take exams at the same exact time.
“The entire nursing program is really devastated. I feel like every nursing major I have seen lately is under extreme stress and it’s definitely affecting our work and overall wellbeing. I feel like it’s not just us who are affected, but also the faculty. I can’t imagine the stress they are going through to implement the new testing policies,” said junior nursing major Evie Lousidis.
With registration time approaching, all nursing students will now have to keep an additional block of time open for this set exam period. The new exam period is currently Tuesdays 8 to 9:30 p.m. Next semester, the time period will be Wednesdays 7:30 to 9:30 p.m.
“After the occurrence of academic integrity, the school is now making nursing students take their test at the same time so students do not speak about the test to others. I understand the change but they are making no exceptions, which is forcing students to miss classes, practices, etc,” said junior nursing major Alexa Balistreri.
“I think people should try and look past the minor schedule changes the CON (College of Nursing) has implemented. This change will only make exams fair for all nursing students,” said fifth year nursing student Ben Harrell.
This change was the result of a recent incident where nursing students who had taken an exam earlier shared the answers with others taking the same exam at a later time.
“When people have the opportunity to talk about a test with peers who have not taken it yet, it provides an unfair advantage to people who now have knowledge about a test that they have not taken, but that another section has,” said senior nursing major Josh Belluche.
“I am very frustrated with the new policies. However, at the end of the day, we should realize that in the future, we must think critically. Cheating is not the answer. We have to understand that this is the fairest option at this point,” said Lousidis.
“Even the nursing students who took the test in the morning but chose not to talk about the exam are still impacted negatively by those who did choose to talk about the exam with the afternoon sections, or those taking it at a later date,” said Belluche.
This incident took place for exam two for the course, NU 300: Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing. All students currently enrolled in a section of this class must either retake the exam or have the grade of their final exam also count for the score of exam two.
“Nursing majors are already under a lot of stress. And this whole situation is just adding to it. Having to retake exams already on top of our rigorous schedule is not fair and very time consuming,” said junior nursing student Nicole Longo.
With either option, the original score that nursing students had for the exam two NU 300: Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing will not count towards their final grade or GPA.
“I feel as though it is extremely unfair to the entire nursing program the changes they are making; everyone is already under so much stress to begin with. These changes are adding additional stress that we do not need. It is also not fair that the entire junior class has to retake the past exam on top of these changes. We all have such busy schedules and do not have enough time in our schedules to restudy for this exam on top of studying for our upcoming exams and papers,” said junior nursing student Danielle Klein.
The Spectrum reached out to the Dr. Susan L. Davis R.N. & Richard J. Henley College of Nursing for an official comment or statement but has yet to hear back.
