Moraine: Lost nursing school accreditation ‘has no impact’
BY STEVE METSCH smetsch@southtownstar.com August 22, 2012 8:14PM
Updated: September 24, 2012 7:48AM
Nursing students at Moraine Valley Community College in Palos Hills, some of whom were told this week that the school of nursing had lost its accreditation, can rest easy.
While the school did lose an accreditation from the National League of Nursing Accreditation Commission, it still is licensed and approved by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, and is fully accredited by The Higher Learning Commission, according to both organizations and school officials.
Colleges rely on accreditations by independent organizations to assure students — and prospective employers of those students — that they have quality programs.
The NLNAC accreditation is not required, Moraine Valley spokesman Mark Horstmeyer said.
“When someone hears we’ve lost our accreditation, that, of course, sounds alarming,” he said. “This is something you want to have, but at the same time, it has no impact on what we do. It’s frosting on the cake.
“It’s an accreditation we seek to have as additional assurance that we’ve reached the highest standards of nursing education.”
Moraine Valley will re-apply for NLNAC accreditation, Horstmeyer said. The accreditation was lost, he said, because “you have to do a self-evaluation and they said we didn’t provide them with enough data.”
An NLNAC spokesman did not return a call Wednesday.
Because Moraine Valley’s nursing school still is licensed and accredited, graduates of the two-year program can take exams to become licensed registered nurses, and can transfer credits to partner universities — the University of St. Francis, Lewis University, University of Illinois-Chicago, and Governors State University — to obtain bachelor of science in nursing degrees, Horstmeyer said.
NLNAC accreditation is not part of the admission process for those schools, he said.
Michelle DeMaso, 32, of Orland Park, a nursing student, said she and other students were “upset and confused” about their futures after an instructor told them Tuesday that the nursing school had lost its accreditation.
“They were kind of vague about what the problem was. We were worried about what would happen,” she said.
Her mother, Nancy DeMaso, said the situation “could have been handled better.”
