Prof brings experience to OCCC nursing program, aims to help students succeed
By Destanie Ellis, News Writing Student
Nursing professor Sarah Brown is on a mission.
She is half of a two-person team whose goal is to graduate more nurses through a special OCCC program that takes students with bachelor’s degrees in other fields and retrains them to become registered nurses.
The program is called BADNAP, which stands for Baccalaureate to Associate Degree Nurse Accelerated Pathway. The program has been going for about three years, Brown said.
This year, 60 students have been accepted. BADNAP’s biggest class thus far, she said.
“BADNAP is very intense and educationally demanding,” Brown said. “The pace is twice as fast as the traditional nursing program.”
Courses which traditionally require 16-week semesters are taught in four eight-week terms. Half of the instruction is online.
Students have six hours of in-class theory and six hours of online work, where teachers post papers, and any other kind of class work.
Brown said she had worked for 11 years as a nurse before coming to OCCC full-time in August.
Previously, she said, she mostly did adjunct teaching for other schools.
She has taught part-time at the University of Central Oklahoma, and worked at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center and Moore Medical Center.
Brown said she has practiced nursing for eight years at the University of Oklahoma Medical Center and continues to work a few days a month at the Moore Medical Center.
This gives her hands-on experience to pass on to her students, she said.
Brown said she worked in the nursing area of Labor and Delivery, which had always been an interest to her.
Brown said she chose to teach at OCCC because she liked the philosophy and mission of the school.
“I like the students and the people I am working with,” she said.
Brown earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from UCO. She said she is currently working on her master’s degree in nursing education at OU and will graduate in the summer of 2010.
She said she makes it a point to keep work and home separate so she can spend time with her family.
Married with three children, Brown said she doesn’t always find time to do everything on her list.
However, she said, she never lets that distract her from keeping her family as her number one focus.
Brown said she also is active in her church and loves to read.
Next year’s BADNAP class has already been picked. In order to be eligible for the BADNAP program, students must have their application in by mid-February.
For more information about the BADNAP program, contact Robin McMurry at 405-682-1611, ext. 7772, or e-mail rmcmurry@occc.edu.
Brown can be reached at sbrown@occc.edu.
