RCTC’s Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) Program is approved by the Minnesota Board of Nursing and is accredited by Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc. (ACEN) located at 3390 Peachtree Road NE, Suite 1400, in Atlanta, Georgia 30326 (http://www.acenursing.org/). The program received initial accreditation in 1972 and has been fully accredited since that time. The most recent accreditation decision made by the ACEN Board of Commissioners for the Associate Degree Nursing program is continuing accreditation.
The ADN program has two cohorts of students, one cohort for the generic track that begins each Fall and Spring semester and the second cohort of LPN mobility students who begin in NURS 1118 of the AD program. The LPN mobility students are licensed LPN’s and receive credit for the first semester, N1117: Fundamentals of Nursing. Upon graduation, both cohorts have an associate in science or AS degree in nursing and are eligible to take the NCLEX-RN exam by the National Council of State Boards of Nursing (NCSBN).
Upon completion of the Associate Degree Nursing Program, students will achieve the following outcomes:
- Practice within the ethical and legal framework of the nursing profession. (Professionalism)
- Identify individual learning goals for personal and professional development within a changing healthcare environment. (Professionalism)
- Integrate evidence-based knowledge, clinical reasoning, and the nursing process to formulate safe nursing judgments when providing quality care. (Critical Thinking)
- Demonstrate an attitude of positive regard, respect for diversity, empathy, and integrity when providing relationship-centered care. (Caring)
- Collaborate with the patient, family, and health care team utilizing evidence-based health information/informatics to achieve quality outcomes. (Collaboration)
- Perform nursing interventions safely for individuals and families in a variety of settings. (Nursing Interventions)
RCTC is proud of our student’s achievements and maintains a continuous improvement plan for continued student success. The following tables demonstrate the outcome data for the ADN program and the LPN mobility track.
Program Outcome 1: First-time NCLEX-RN pass rates will be 80% or greater.
| Year | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |
| NCLEX-RN first-time pass rate as reported by the MN Board of Nursing -January 1-December 31. | 89.08% | 87.5% | 97.35% |
Program Outcome 2: Program completion rate will be at or above 50% (% of students completing within 100% of the program length).
| Year | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 |
| AD Program Completion Aggregated by Cohort Date | 56.9% | 56.5% | 58.2% |
| AD Program Completion Aggregated by Cohort Date at 150% of program length | 75.5% | 75.7% | 77.4% |
Program Outcome 3: 89% of graduates will gain employment in an RN nursing position within six (6)- twelve (12) months post-graduation.
| Year | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 |
| Number of Graduates | 113 | 117 | 113 |
| Response Rate | 80.5% | 88% | 87.6% |
| Job placement based on responses | 99% | 100% | 100% |