School of Nursing Overview

Hartwick has over 80 years of experience preparing nurses at the baccalaureate level. Our NCLEX pass rate for May 2023 graduates was 100%. This is well above both the NYS and National averages.

The broad liberal arts and sciences education that complements Hartwick’s nursing program provides the communication, critical thinking, informed decision-making, and leadership skills the profession demands. Hartwick nurses are highly qualified, self-directed individuals who are able to thrive in both the present and a rapidly changing healthcare system of the future.

The School of Nursing offers a variety of programs to both high school graduates and transfer students. Whether you have a high school diploma, a bachelor’s degree or anything in between, we have a program for you.

School of Nursing’s Mission, Vision & Goals

Our mission is to educate individuals to become highly qualified, competent, self-directed nurses who will continually evolve in a constantly changing health care system. Our vision is to excel at integrating the liberal arts with a nursing education. The liberal arts educated nurse graduate will possess the personal, intellectual, and social skills necessary to meet the challenges of an increasingly interdependent and diverse world.

Nursing for High School Graduates
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Nursing for Transfer Students
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Nursing Degree Requirements
College Catalog
Course Descriptions
College Catalog

Program Information

Accreditation

The baccalaureate degree program in nursing at Hartwick College is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, 655 K Street, NW, Suite 750, Washington, DC 20001, 202-887-6791.

Curriculum

At Hartwick, new nursing students learn basic nursing skills in the first year, with Foundations of Nursing Practice in the fall semester, and Health Assessment in the spring. While most of the weekly labs take place on campus, by the end of the semester students will spend 16 hours at a clinical site. Hartwick’s nursing curriculum, like the profession, is a demanding one. A professional nursing degree from Hartwick is based upon a strong foundation in the arts, humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and physical and life sciences. Some courses required for the nursing major are only offered in certain semesters and may not be repeated until the course is offered again. Students who are enrolled in an accelerated program and receive less than a C in any course required from the major are unenrolled from an accelerated track to promote success.

Our newest nurses, after their Pinning Ceremony

Progression Policy

Nursing is a rigorous program of study. Students must earn a grade of C or better in each course required for the major in order to progress. A specific course for the major may be repeated only one time. A maximum of two different courses required for the major may be repeated one time; this includes prerequisite and co-requisite courses. Students who are unable to meet this progression standard will be dismissed from the nursing program.

Nursing Licensure Reciprocity

New federal regulations effective July 1, 2020, require institutions offering programs leading to professional licensure or certification to provide notifications that indicate whether or not the program, regardless of modality (either online or face-to-face) meets educational requirements for licensure/certification in a given state.

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Baccalaureate Graduate Outcomes

Graduates are able to intervene therapeutically; critically think, reason, and problem solve; communicate effectively; and act responsibly as citizens of the world and self-regulating members of the profession. Program outcomes reflect the standards for baccalaureate nursing education.

Acts responsibly as a self-regulating member of the profession demonstrates professionalism and professional values:

– Demonstrates positive self-care and ethical behaviors.

– Demonstrates personal and professional accountability, and responsibility.

– Engages in personal and professional self-development and life-long learning.

– Demonstrate national and global engagement through service commitments to local and broader community.

– Demonstrates knowledge of the political, economic, and regulatory context on health care policies, the health care system, and nursing care.

– Demonstrates professional values of caring, altruism, autonomy, integrity, and promotion of human dignity and social justice in all encounters.

Communicate effectively as a member of interprofessional health care team to promote safe, quality, effective care; and a healthy professional work:

– Uses Communication techniques (verbal, non-verbal, written, and therapeutic) effectively to assess, plan, implement, and evaluate care.

– Uses communication techniques to effectively gather and disseminate information.

– Effectively manages and uses information and healthcare technologies to provide safe, quality, effective care and care practices.

– Collaborates with the individual, family, and members of the inter-professional health care team to meet identified patient care needs.

– Effectively communicates patient needs and concerns (individuals, families, communities, aggregates) in a developmentally and culturally appropriate manner.

Intervenes therapeutically to provide to provide high quality, safe, and effective care-the graduate is able to perform holistic care such as but not limited to:

– Performs holistic nursing care (health promotion, risk reduction, disease prevention, illness and disease management that meets the unique needs of the patient.

– Applies knowledge and skill in leadership-management, quality improvement, and patient safety to provide high quality health care.

– Demonstrates knowledge of organizational behavior, the healthcare system, information and healthcare technologies, and human and global perspectives into care.

– Demonstrates knowledge of relevant agency, regulatory, and professional healthcare policies and standards into care.

– Integrates scholarship and current evidence into care.

The graduate is able to critically think, evaluate information, and applies clinical reasoning to patient care and clinical decision-making situations such as but not limited to:

– Uses scientific problem solving, coordination of care, health teaching and promotion, consultation and evaluation2 to provide, design, manage, and coordinate care for patients across the life span.

– Synthesizes theories and knowledge from nursing science with the physical and life sciences with physical and life sciences, humanities, social and behavioral health sciences into patient care and clinical decision-making.

– Applies knowledge of organizational behavior, the healthcare system, information and healthcare technologies, and human and global perspectives into patient care and clinical decision-making.

– Considers relevant agency, regulatory, and professional healthcare policies and standards into care planning and clinical decision-making.

"The technology in our nursing simulation labs is so realistic that I felt really prepared when I started my first-year clinicals. It’s critical to have hands-on experience in nursing."

Thomas Carlon ’25

Nursing major

Clinical Experiences

Nursing is an applied science – the science of human care. Nurses provide care to the ill, injured, or those in crisis. Nurses promote health, reduce risks, treat, and rehabilitate. Nurses are the hands-on, eyes-on, 24-7 monitoring and surveillance team.

In your first year as a nursing student you will concentrate on learning the basic nursing skills through 40 hours of hands on clinical work. In your second and third years, you attend a 7-to-10-hour clinical rotation each week. You work hand-in-hand with clinically expert faculty to apply what you are learning in the classroom and in the learning laboratory to clinical settings. You'll complete 12 hours of clinical work in your senior year.

Over the course of the program, you gain more than 800 hours of supervised clinical experience, which prepares you to take on the challenges of direct patient care in a variety of settings. Because of high demand from other collegiate nursing programs, students should be prepared for clinical rotations that are scheduled on weekends.


By the time you are a senior, you will have completed a wide spectrum of courses, including:

pediatrics, women’s health, gerontology, medical-surgical nursing, community health and psychiatric/mental health.

And you will have worked in a variety of health care settings, among them:

rural and urban teaching hospitals, a birthing center, a hospice, a certified home health care agency, pre-schools, school-based health centers, elder day care centers, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, ambulatory surgical centers, dialysis centers.

The health care facilities in the region offer state-of-the-art care, including cutting-edge open heart surgery, telehealth, telestroke, and robotic surgery programs, to name a few. In the last half of  your senior year, you will complete a 200-hour Senior Independent Practicum. This gives you the opportunity to narrow your focus and to shadow a nurse in an area of specialization at a hospital with which Hartwick has an affiliation agreement. This very hand-on experience prepares you for the realities of nursing practice —and many return from this practicum with a job offer.

Clinical Affiliates

Hartwick’s School of Nursing maintains partnerships with the following facilities and organizations in the region:

  • A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital, Oneonta, NY
  • At Home Care, Oneonta, NY
  • Bassett Healthcare Network, Cobleskill, NY
  • Bassett Medical Center, Cooperstown, NY
  • Bassett Healthcare Network, Oneonta, NY
  • Catskill Area Hospice and Palliative Care, Oneonta, NY
  • Delaware County Public Health, Delhi, NY
  • Ellis Medical Center, Schenectady, NY
  • Golisano Children’s Hospital, Syracuse, NY
  • Hampshire House Assisted Living and Memory Care, Oneonta NY
  • Laurens Central School, Laurens, NY
  • NYCAMH (New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health), Fly Creek, NY
  • Oneonta City Schools, Oneonta, NY
  • Oneonta Housing Authority, Oneonta, NY
  • Oneonta Specialty Services, Oneonta, NY
  • Otsego County Mental Health Clinic, Oneonta, NY
  • Otsego County Public Health Nursing Service, Oneonta, NY
  • The Plains at Parish Homestead, Oneonta, NY
  • Robinson Terrace Rehabilitation & Nursing Center, Stamford NY
  • Robynwood Home for Adults, Oneonta NY
  • Springbrook, Oneonta NY
  • St. James Manor, Oneonta, NY
  • St. Margaret’s Center, Albany, NY

Meet Our Faculty & Staff

Geneen Bolton

Academic Affairs Liaison to Nursing

Lisa Wehner

Associate Professor of Nursing
607-431-4735

Lorena Marra

Assistant Professor of Nursing
607-431-4797

Melody Best ’84

Assistant Professor of Nursing
607-431-4590

Donna Moore

Clinical Placement Coordinator
607-431-4589

John Janitz

Simulation Lab Technician
607-431-4781

Greta Holt

Nursing Learning and Technology Lab Specialist & Clinical Nursing Instructor
607-431-4792

Miya McCann

Assistant Professor of Nursing
607-431-4785

Kim Smith

Associate Professor and Chair of Nursing
607-431-4776

Lisa Depperman

Clinical Assistant Professor of Nursing
607-431-4239

Kathy Eichhorn

Administrative Assistant for Academic Affairs, Department of Nursing
607-431-4798

Betsy Rodgers

Clinical Instructor in Nursing
607-431-4625

Membership Opportunities

Hartwick College Association of Student Nurses leadership and members have been very active in transforming their student organization. A new constitution and mission statement have been developed to better reflect the organization, its membership and its mission.

HCASN Mission Statement:
1.  Promote wellness and health education throughout the Hartwick College and surrounding community.
2.  Represent and mentor students interested in nursing and healthcare.
3.  Promote service-oriented and community involvement of members.
4.  Provide an opportunity for students to collaborate with each other and other campus and professional organizations.
5.  Foster development of leadership skills and responsible membership in those who aspire to a role in healthcare.
6.  Contribute to quality healthcare and the advancement of nursing (education, practice, and research) through public advocacy.
7.  Increase public and professional awareness of issues that impact on healthcare.

HCASN plans to meet monthly, combining an event with each meeting. The fall meetings have included collecting canned goods and fundraising for Thanksgiving baskets. Further fundraising—through a clothing sale, etc.—will help to support the Ministries of the Poor in Kingston, Jamaica. Plans for the spring include making Easter baskets for the pre-school children at Springbrook. Students interested in joining the organization should contact an officer of the organization. Members are required to attend at least 3 events during the year.

The mission of the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International (STTI) is advancing world health and celebrating nursing excellence in scholarship, leadership, and service.

In order to be eligible, nursing students must:
• have completed half of the nursing curriculum
• achieve academic excellence (minimum 3.0 GPA)
• meet the expectation of academic integrity

Invitations are sent to eligible students in the spring semester. The Omicron Rho Chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International welcomes students to another season of scholarly activity at Hartwick College’s School of Nursing.