UNMC College of Nursing establishes nursing education affiliation with Jordanian university

The University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Nursing and the Al-Zaytoonah Private University (AZPU) of Jordan, on Sept. 20, established an affiliation to advance nursing education in Jordan and the Arab region.

During a signing ceremony at the UNMC campus in Omaha, the UNMC College of Nursing formalized a three-year contract affiliation with AZPU that will include sharing traditional and online nursing education and clinical curriculum, and provide faculty training in integrating online courses into traditional curriculum. The college currently provides courses to faculty at Erebouni College in Armenia, which was the first pilot site for the college’s strategy of moving the ‘global classroom’ model into other regions of the world, including the Arab world, India and China.

Harold M. Maurer, M.D., UNMC chancellor, welcomed the Jordanian delegation to UNMC and Nebraska. “Our goal at UNMC is to be a world-class academic health science center. This relationship we’re developing with the university is a wonderful example of extending the expertise we have in nursing, particularly in distance education programs. We’re excited about the exchanges and possibilities with your university,” Dr. Maurer said.

“We are really looking forward to a close working relationship with you and your faculty. UNMC also will benefit from your expertise. We’re very grateful you have come here to visit us,” Dr. Maurer said.

“The visit here is very important. We are looking to improve the quality of our nursing programs,” said Naser Saleh, Ph.D., president, Al-Zaytoonah Private University, which is located just south of Amman, Jordan. “We want to expose our students to outstanding universities so they can have a better chance of getting a job. We feel we’ve done our job when they get the best education and they’re serving the community.

”This is also one way we connect with other universities,” said Dr. Saleh, who said like the United States, all governments are struggling with the nursing shortage. He said there are eight colleges of nursing in Jordan.

Virginia Tilden, D.N.Sc., dean of the UNMC College of Nursing, said the college will share its model of online nursing education to help the university become a leader for Arabic nursing education. “The goal is to support the university in becoming a hub for nursing education throughout the Arab world,” Dr. Tilden said.

The impetus for the alliance originated with discussions between Dr. Ryan and Majeda El-Banna, Ph.D., a May 2004 graduate of the UNMC College of Nursing doctoral program.

“We can help them deliver specialty areas in nursing such as cancer, critical care and community nursing, where currently there is very little. We also hope this partnership will ultimately benefit Iraqi nurses,” said Sheila A. Ryan, Ph.D., Charlotte Peck Lienemann & Alumni Distinguished Chair, UNMC College of Nursing, and director of International Nursing Education Programs.

“Jordan is advanced economically and politically respected throughout Arab countries. Dr. El-Banna and I discussed creating a center in Jordan for UNMC’s nursing educational outreach programs,” Dr. Ryan said.

Officials say the advantages of the partnership include raising the quality of nursing education, which ultimately improves patient care, and addressing nursing shortages in Jordan and the Arab region.
Dr. Ryan said the UNMC College of Nursing, which has more than 75 online nursing courses, has students enrolled in master’s and doctoral degrees across the country.

“This partnership is an extension of the excellence of this faculty, which has developed and delivered distance education programs here for the last 20 years,” Dr. Ryan said. “We are maximizing that investment globally.”

One of the first things the partnership will support is the creation of a learning resource center at AZPU. The center will be equipped with computer and other technology that allow students to learn and practice nursing skills independently. The center also will integrate online courses, audio visual resources, and address improvements in clinical instruction and evaluation.

“Rather than watch the instructor demonstrate a task once, then expect the student to perform the task, we will use a learning approach that reinforces practice using sophisticated tools in a simulated environment,” Dr. Ryan said. “It will help their faculty move beyond the ‘watch me, then do it’ model.”

The collaboration affiliation also will include consulting and assistance with accreditation processes, faculty and student exchanges, planning regional and global nursing continuing education programs, research collaboration and seeking global funding resources to support selected shared programs. UNMC also will assist AZPU faculty interested in pursuing UNMC’s online master’s and doctoral programs.

Dr. El-Banna said while pursuing her doctoral nursing degree at the college, she was impressed by the academic and technological educational tools. “I was impressed with what I saw at UNMC,” Dr. El-Banna said. “I wanted to have the same things in my country that you have here.”

Established in 1993, AZPU is located near Amman, the capital of Jordan, and encompasses 18 specialty with faculty in six key programs — economics and administrative sciences, science and information technology, arts, pharmacy, nursing and law.

Of the nearly 6,000, mostly Jordanian, students enrolled at the university, about 1,100 are nursing students pursuing bachelor’s degrees in nursing. Half are men. Non-Jordanian students come from 14 Arab countries. Arabic is the official language of instruction, although English is used in a number of courses offered by faculty.

AZPU officials said Jordanian and others in the region choose nursing for many of the same reasons Americans do, including the ability to help people and ample job opportunities.

Dr. Ryan said she and others hope the nursing model will expand into other disciplines of health education.

“UNMC wants to be known as world-class. The College of Nursing wants to be in the top 10. One way is to be visible in the world,” Dr. Ryan said. “Our online nursing programs are light-years ahead of other programs, even among the top 15 schools of nursing in the country.”

The UNMC College of Nursing leads the way at UNMC in the use of innovative technology to deliver instruction to students at a distance, including throughout Nebraska, regionally, nationally and internationally. About half of the college’s students are enrolled in distance education programs. Distance education programs, which were born from the need to serve rural Nebraskans, now serve as a key instrument in the effort to resolve the nursing shortage.
College officials say in the past five years, many “brick and mortar” classrooms have been replaced by “virtual” classrooms. At UNMC, College of Nursing, faculty members were the first to adapt their instruction to the medium of interactive television more than 25 years ago.

In the past nine years, the college has obtained six multi-year grants yielding more than $8.5 million in federal training grants to fund their efforts to extend programs to students not able to attend class at one of its four divisions.

AZPU representatives at the signing included: Naser Saleh, Ph.D., Iyad Al-Qirem, member of the board of trustees, Galeb Saleh, Ph.D., dean of economics and business administration; and Dr. El-Banna. During the three-day stay, the delegation toured hospital areas, visited with faculty and were guests at various social functions.