Licensure of Direct Entry Students Was Never Approved By The Wisconsin Board of Nursing in the First Place

There has been quite a bit of confusion about the two conflicting versions of what I am calling the "Special Agreement" - a 1999 letter from Wayne Austin (then legal counsel for the Wisconsin Board of Nursing) to Madeline Wake (Then Dean of Marquette's College of Nursing). I first brought up the issue here. Both Marquette and the Department of Regulation & Licensing have been claiming that this "Special Agreement" allows Marquette's Direct Entry students to become licensed as RNs in Wisconsin without graduation from a nursing program - even though this is a violation of the Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act 441.04.

The two letters are identical except for the single most important sentence in the letter (this sentence can be found at the bottom of the second page of both letters). One version states that only "graduates" of the Direct Entry program are eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin. The other version states that "persons completing the basic nursing education phase of the program" are eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin, with no mention of graduation being a requirement. Both versions of this 1999 letter from Mr. Austin to Ms. Wake end by indicating that the letter was approved by the Wisconsin Board of Nursing at their meeting held on January 28, 1999 - but obviously only one version of the letter was actually approved by the Board on that date. The minutes for the January 28, 1999 meeting can be found here; approval of the letter is shown on page 4 of the pdf.

Madeline Wake was interviewed by one of Marquette's lawyers before the August 30th Board of Nursing meeting about the two versions of this letter. Ms. Wake admitted that she received the first version of the letter, the one stating that only graduates of the Direct Entry program would be eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin, in early February 1999 after it was approved by the Board of Nursing the previous month. She did not like what the letter said, so she requested that Mr. Austin alter the letter and re-send it to her: which Mr. Austin complied with! Wayne Austin altered the letter after it was approved by the Board of Nursing to indicate that students did not need to graduate from the program in order to become licensed. He did not change the last paragraph in the letter which falsely indicates that the letter was approved by the Board of Nursing on January 28, 1999, even though the alterations in the letter were not approved.

Even if the version of the letter that states that "persons completing the basic nursing education phase of the program" would be eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin had been approved by the Wisconsin Board of Nursing (which it was not) this agreement would be invalid anyway. Neither Wayne Austin nor the Wisconsin Board of Nursing hold the authority to make exceptions to Wisconsin state law. The Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act 441.04 clearly requires one to hold a "diploma of graduation" in order to become eligible to become licensed as a nurse in Wisconsin. This is a state law that was voted on and passed by the Wisconsin state legislature. The only body that has the authority to make exceptions to the law is the state legislature itself.

If Marquette wants their Direct Entry nursing students to be legally eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin at the completion of the pre-MSN phase of the program, then they must issue a "diploma of graduation" of some variety to students at that time.