Southwestern Michigan College has been awarded five-year accreditation for its associate degree in nursing by ACEN, the Atlanta-based Accreditation Commission for education in nursing.

SMC hosted a three-day site visit last September by three deans from Maryland, Pennsylvania and California, but the daunting four-year process actually began when the college sought to become an accreditation candidate in 2014.

“ACEN requires three years of data to make sure a program meets the gold standard in the nursing world,” said Nursing and Health Services Dean Rebecca Jellison. “It focuses on continuous improvement. One of our program outcomes is the pass rate on NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) — those who pass the NCLEX are certified to practice as a Registered Nurse. This year we’ll graduate 33 students, and our pass rate, 85 percent, is better than the 81-percent national average.

“I have a continuous-improvement plan calendar I live by. Every month at faculty meetings we look at different standards. When we go through this process again in 2022 this will be in our archive to write our self-study report. We had two years to complete our self-study, which we submitted last June.”

Jellison said eight faculty members and her administrative assistant helped evaluate standards.

“(ACEN) looks at student work, your meeting minutes, everything with a fine-toothed comb,” she said. “They went to classrooms, met with the faculty and cabinet and we had to take them off-campus to hospitals to meet clinical people.”

“This accreditation, combined with the groundbreaking of our $9.6 million nursing building expansion, truly show SMC is a leading program to help the community,” said SMC President Dr. David Mathews. “It provides outstanding access to affordable, high-quality credentialing for students while meeting the workforce needs of area hospitals and health-care providers.”

The SMC Nursing Program is also approved by the Michigan Board of Nursing to provide education leading to an associate degree in nursing.

Southwestern Michigan College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, 30 N. LaSalle St., Chicago, IL, 60602-2504, 800.621.7440, hlcommission.org.