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Philosophy & Handbook

Handbook
 Printable versions of the Handbook  -  word .doc   adobe .pdf

Philosophy
The Faculty of the Eastern Iowa Community Colleges Department of Nursing believes nursing is a discipline dedicated to the care of persons within a family and societal context. We believe that humans are complex beings possessing individual dignity and worth. Each person shares qualities in common with all human beings, but, also, possesses elements of uniqueness. Persons are a composite of biological, physiological, psychological, socio cultural, and developmental dimensions in constant interaction with a changing environment.

Health is viewed as a dynamic response to stressors in the internal and external environment through which persons are able to achieve maximum potential at any given point in time. Illness occurs when persons' actual and/or perceived needs adversely affect the ability to meet the activities of daily living. Persons are capable of exercising free will, that is, reasoning, developing self knowledge, learning new behaviors, making informed choices and accepting responsibilities for these choices.

Nursing assists persons in the promotion, the maintenance, and the restoration of health and the provision for quality of life when the maximum potential is diminished or challenged. Underlying all nursing activity is the concept of caring. Nursing practice involves the utilization of the nursing process as its scientific cornerstone and the creative use of knowledge, technique, and self as the foundation for the art of nursing. Nurses assume a variety of professional roles in the provision of nursing care.

Consistent with the Eastern Iowa Community Colleges mission statement, the faculty of the Department of Nursing strives to provide quality nursing programs at the practical and associate degree levels that meet the educational needs of the student and the community. These two levels of programs share a common core of knowledge allowing for articulation to successive levels of nursing education, dependent on the goals and abilities of the student.

The faculty believes learning is an ongoing interactive process that results in an internalized change in behavior. Learning is gradual, measurable, and affected by motivation, anxiety, attitudes and rewards.

Learning is related to past and present experiences and should be self satisfying and continuing. The learner is valued as a person, is knowledgeable and is worthy of faculty time and effort. The educator is a facilitator and catalyst that brings knowledge and the learner together. The educator enhances learning by: creating an environment conductive to the exploration of ideas, modeling the behaviors and values to be learned, and providing a variety of learning experiences. The educator and the learner share responsibility for evaluating learning outcomes and for strengthening the teaching/learning process.