A Message for Marquette Direct Entry Nursing Students

Marquette wants you to think that the pre-MSN phase of the program will make you eligible for RN licensure only in Wisconsin. This is a lie, plain and simple.

Legally, there is no possible way for a school of nursing to make their students eligible for licensure in only one state. If Marquette wishes to make Direct Entry students eligible for licensure in Wisconsin, then they must meet the criteria for licensure in Wisconsin - and the criteria for licensure in Wisconsin is very similar, or even identical, to the criteria for licensure in most other states.

Once you have passed NCLEX (the state board exam) and get a Wisconsin RN license, you should be able to transfer this license to most, if not all, other states in the country. Of course I can not guarantee licensure at the completion of the pre-MSN phase in any state, even Wisconsin, and neither can Marquette. Becoming licensed as an RN requires that you must pass NCLEX among other things that Marquette can not control.

If you have completed the pre-MSN phase of Marquette's Direct Entry program, have become licensed in Wisconsin, did not complete an MSN at Marquette, and wish to get a nursing license in a state other than Wisconsin, these are my suggestions:

1. Apply to your new state's Board of Nursing for a "license by endorsement." This means transferring a license from one state to another. It may be helpful to submit a copy of your "Certificate of Completion" from Marquette with your application. Dr. Judith Miller may also be willing to send the Board a letter explaining the Direct Entry program a little bit and stating that you "completed the pre-MSN phase of the Direct Entry program."



2. If there are questions raised about your initial application and you are still told that you can't get a license without "graduation" from a school of nursing, try submitting the Memorandum produced by Colleen Baird, legal counsel for the Wisconsin Board of Nursing, that gives her legal interpretation of the "Certificate of Completion" to legally constitute a "Diploma of Graduation." I have a feeling that most, if not all, state Boards of Nursing would take this document very seriously. A pdf file of the memorandum can be found here, please feel free to print out a copy.



3. Find out the exact wording of your new state's Nurse Practice Act and their Board of Nursing Rules and Regulations (this may be called something else in some states - in Wisconsin it is the same thing as Chapter N of the Wisconsin Administrative Code). Look for the part that discusses issuing nursing licenses by endorsement. The full text of these documents for most states are available on the internet. In most states the Nurse Practice Act and the Board of Nursing Rules and Regulations are worded to require either "completion of a nursing program," "graduation from a nursing program" or "a degree or diploma from a school of nursing." Marquette has already issued you a "Certificate of Completion" and the Wisconsin Board of Nursing has issued a legal interpretation stating that this is the same thing as a "Diploma of Graduation." With any of these types of wording you should be able to get a license in that state.



4. At this point, don't bother arguing with low-level bureaucrats. You will likely need to go up the chain of command. I suggest going directly to the legal counsel for the Board of Nursing in your new state if your initial application was denied, although the exact job title for this person varies from state to state. (In Mississippi, for example, this person's job title is "Director of Discipline" because for the most part their job involves dealing with disciplinary actions.)



5. Good Luck!

Anyone out there who is having a problem getting a nursing license in a new state after attending a Direct Entry program is welcome to email me for more information. I have spent the last eight months doing in-depth research on all aspects of RN licensure policies and procedures in general - and in Wisconsin, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana specifically. I may not be able to answer specific questions about licensure in other states, but I could probably point you in the right direction.

My email address is: lydiajoanne (at) yahoo (dot) com

VICTORY!

Today the Mississippi Board of nursing reviewed my application for licensure by endorsement (transferring my RN license from Wisconsin) and voted to approve my license!!! They already have all of my application materials on file, so the paperwork should go through next week.

At the August 30th Wisconsin Board of Nursing meeting (which I was not able to attend in person) some people from the Wisconsin Board spoke with my parents (who were there) and told them that the Wisconsin Board and Marquette had both been in contact with the Mississippi Board of Nursing (MSBN) and had been advocating for Mississippi to review my application and grant me a license by endorsement. Until that time I had no idea that the Wisconsin Board of Nursing or Marquette had been in contact with the MSBN. Dr. Judith Miller from Marquette's College of Nursing had already written the MSBN at the time that I first applied for a nursing license here (almost two years ago) and her letter had not made any difference. Besides, the MSBN Rules and Regulations clearly require proof of graduation from a school of nursing, which I could not provide, so I did not see any benefit to appealing the MSBN's original decision on my application since I don't have proof of graduation.

Basically I made such a problem for both Marquette and the Wisconsin Board of Nursing that they will both do almost anything to make me just go away. This is not how I wanted the problem to be resolved, but at this point I'm counting it as a victory and planning to begin moving on with my life as a nurse some time soon!

I'll be leaving the blog up in perpetuity in hopes that it will be helpful to future generations of googlers.

Legal Interpretation of "Diploma of Graduation" Presented to the Wisconsin Board of Nursing Yesterday

Here are links to pdf files of the documents that Colleen Baird presented to the Wisconsin Board of Nursing yesterday with short explanations:

The Memorandum (10 pages)
This document basically says that since the phrase "Diploma of Graduation" is not defined in the law, then the generally accepted meaning of the words are to be used. She twists the dictionary definition of the words "diploma" and "graduation" to include the "Certificate of Completion" that Marquette's Direct Entry students are given at the end of the pre-MSN phase. She argues that it is legal for Direct Entry students to be licensed as RNs in Wisconsin under the Nurse Practice Act because they get this "Certificate of completion" from Marquette. It is very creative - you should check it out.

Although I completely disagree with this legal interpretation that the "Certificate of Completion" that Marquette gives to Direct Entry students at the completion of the pre-MSN phase of the program legally constitutes a "Diploma of Graduation" under the Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act, this document could help me to obtain licensure in states other than Wisconsin. You better bet I'll be holding on to it in case I move to another state in the future.

In fact, this document could also help other students who, like me, completed the pre-MSN phase of Marquette's Direct Entry program but moved out of Wisconsin before completion of an MSN degree. The document could help people in this situation to obtain RN licensure in their new state of residence. If you are one of these students, then please feel free to print off a copy of the pdf file and send it in to the Board of Nursing in your new state if you are having a problem with your licensure application!


Attachments:

Brochure about Marquette's Direct Entry Program (2 pages)
I don't have a pdf of this file, but it just gives some basic information about Marquette's Direct Entry program like the courses that are a part of the pre-MSN phase and things like that.

Direct Entry MSN Nursing Program (1 page)
This chart shows each cohort of Marquette's and UWM's Direct Entry programs and lists how many applications they got, how many students were accepted, and how many students dropped out.

I am very curious how they are defining "applied to the program" because there is a huge inconsistency between what this chart lists and what I was told by Marquette administrators when I was a student in the Direct Entry program. I was in the 6th cohort (04-05) and I was told at that time that there had been about 90 applicants for my class, yet this chart indicates that there were 672 applications for that year. I am also curious how they are defining "dropped out of the program" because only about half of my cohort actually went on to the MSN part of the program, and fewer than that graduated from the MSN program.

Analysis of 60 DE schools AACN list (10 pages)
Marquette has been claiming that their are 59 other Direct Entry MSN programs other than theirs across the country to make it look like programs like Marquette's Direct Entry program are widely accepted. (AACN stands for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and they list of 60 Direct Entry MSN type programs in the U.S.) The only problem with this is that most of these other programs are not run the same way as Marquette's program, and thus these other programs follow the Nurse Practice Acts of their own states for a number of reasons. The Board of Nursing researched all 60 of these programs and how they are run.

Some of these programs do award a BSN or another kind of degree or diploma at the completion of the pre-MSN phase, and some programs require students to already be registered nurses in order to apply to the program in the first place. One thing that was left off of this chart was whether or not the state that the program is in legally requires graduation or a degree or diploma in order to become licensed. Some states' Nurse Practice Acts are worded in such a way that they do not actually require graduation in order to be legally eligible for licensure in their state - so a program run like Marquette's would be legal in a state like that. Wisconsin state law, on the other hand, clearly requires graduation.

The "Special Agreement" (4 pages)
They included the version that was altered after it was approved by the Board. I explain more about the two versions of the "Special Agreement" here.

Affidavit (1 page)
I posted about the Affidavit signed by Madeline Wake and how the "Special Agreement" was altered after it was approved by the Board of Nursing here.

Today's Wisconsin Board of Nursing Meeting

I was not able to attend today's Wisconsin Board of Nursing meeting in person, but my Mother attended and told me what happened. Representatives from Marquette were also in attendance.

Today the Board voted on and passed a motion in closed session that basically stated that the Board will consider my "Certificate of Completion" of the pre-MSN phase of Marquette's Direct Entry nursing program to legally constitute a "diploma of graduation" so that Marquette's Direct Entry students are legally eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin under the Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act. (The Wisconsin Nurse Practice Act 441.04 requires one to hold a "diploma of graduation" from a school of nursing in order to be eligible for RN licensure in Wisconsin.) It does not matter that this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, or that Marquette is very clear that Direct Entry students do not graduate or earn any kind of degree or diploma at the completion of the pre-MSN phase.

Representatives from Marquette stood before the Board today and called the "Certificate of Completion" that is given to Direct Entry students at the end of the pre-MSN part of the Direct Entry program nothing more than a "celebratory piece of paper." Very interesting that the DRL is considering this "celebratory piece of paper" a "diploma of graduation."

Unfortunately I do not have a copy of the exact wording of the motion that was passed by the Board today, and I won't have it until the minutes for today's meeting are approved at their next meeting on November 8th.

Debra Kraft, interim legal counsel for the Wisconsin Department of Regulation & Licensing, presented to the Board a lengthy document that gives her legal interpretation of the term "diploma of graduation" and an explanation of how she interprets Marquette's "Certificate of Completion" to actually be a form of a "diploma of graduation." I will have a copy of this document tomorrow and will post more about it then.

[Update: turns out the "legal interpretation" I mentioned above was actually written and presented by Colleen Baird, legal counsel for the Wisconsin Board of Nursing, not Debra Kraft.]