The faculty of the Department of Nursing at Arkansas Tech University seeks through its professional program to implement the mission of the University, a mission committed to prepare students to meet the demands of an increasingly competitive and intellectually challenging future. The University provides opportunities for intellectual growth, skill development, and career preparation.

We view individuals as complex beings with bio-psycho social, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and environmental elements. The Department of Nursing is committed to providing opportunities for students to enhance their critical thinking and communication skills in therapeutic interventions. The graduate will utilize the nursing process to assist individuals, families, groups and communities to meet their bio-psycho-social, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and environmental needs.

We believe nursing is a caring relationship that facilitates health and healing. Encompassing the acquisition and critical application of knowledge from nursing and the social, psychological, biological, and physical sciences, nursing meets the health needs of individuals, families, groups, and communities. As a profession with responsibilities and privileges, nursing is concerned with restorative, supportive, and promotive practices aimed to optimize health in the recipients of care. Nursing is publicly accountable to the society it serves, obligated to improve nursing practice through acquisition, utilization, augmentation, and promotion of knowledge and skills, as well as the systematic study of the effects of these practices on human health.

We believe learning is essentially manifested in a change or reorganization of behavior and is best accomplished through active inquiry and participation in the learning process. Learning is a lifelong, self-initiated process by which knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values are acquired. Learning occurs independently through perception, assimilation, formulation, and synthesis. The teacher functions as a facilitator by establishing a learning climate of mutual respect regarding beliefs, feelings, and opinions, and by providing learning opportunities and guidance with regard to individual differences. Learning experiences are designed to facilitate personal and professional growth within the student's cognitive, affective, and psychomotor domains. The ultimate responsibility for learning rests with the learner.

We believe nursing education, an integral part of higher education, fosters the generation and application of scientific knowledge through the nursing process. These learning experiences are organized for an orderly progression through an increasing complexity of nursing situations. During the educational process, the student acquires knowledge of the independent and collaborative functions of the nurse.

We believe baccalaureate nursing education prepares a person for professional nursing practice. The curriculum is designed to prepare the person for basic nursing practice, to be competent, self directed, and capable of demonstrating leadership in the application of the nursing process in a variety of healthcare settings. The graduate should demonstrate initiative for responsible change, the ability to think critically, and a lifelong quest for knowledge and growth.