On behalf of Karen Wall, Chair of Nursing, and the Red River College Nursing faculty, we would like to announce and celebrate the enormous success of two very important programs in Red River College Nursing history.

The Red River College/University of Manitoba Joint Baccalaureate Nursing Program (JBN) was established in 1996 and in the same year all diploma nursing programs in the province of Manitoba were closed.  The students completed their first 3 years of education at Red River College followed by their final year at the University of Manitoba.  The JBN Program remains the only joint degree program in Canada that was a 3 + 1 model.  The first entry of 20 students graduated from the University of Manitoba in 2000. In its final years the student intake for the JBN Program was 108 students. The collegial working relationship between the RRC Nursing Department and the University of Manitoba Faculty of Nursing resulted in an excellent joint program that ran successfully for 16 years.

In response to the nursing shortage, the Diploma Nursing (Accelerated) Program (DNA) was established in 2000. The first entry of 80 students graduated in 2002. This became a very popular and well respected program with an eventual intake of 102 students moving through the curriculum.  The final group of students admitted into the program in May of 2011 was comprised solely of LPNs who were keenly interested in becoming RNs.  This last group will graduate in the fall of 2012.

Both programs have produced an amazing alumnus of nursing graduates who provide high quality professional nursing services to the people of Manitoba.

Under Karen’s leadership, these successful programs ran side by side for many years.  At the same time our dream of developing and implementing our own degree nursing program went from a wish to a reality. Our new RRC degree program has been successfully underway for the last two years.

The nursing faculty will be honoring our outgoing alumni from the final JBN and DNA class and celebrating the enormous success of these two very important programs in Red River College history. We are proud of our RRC nursing alumni, graduates and the committed nursing faculty.  We will be hosting a tribute in honor of these two closing programs on March 30/2012 and saluting the hard work and dedication of both faculty and alumni.