Mission

To educate, empower and embolden diverse healthcare professionals who advance the health of people, families, communities and nations.

Vision

By living Chamberlain Care^®, we graduate extraordinary healthcare professionals who transform the health of people worldwide.

Purpose

To create an academic culture in which colleagues and students thrive and that cultivates extraordinary graduates.

The Chamberlain Care^® Philosophy of Higher Education

Chamberlain’s philosophy of higher education is grounded in the belief that taking extraordinary care of students leads to better student outcomes and experiences and ultimately to extraordinary care of patients, families and communities. In 2010, this philosophy was translated into a model called Chamberlain Care^® that has since evolved into an integrated, holistic educational model that incorporates the following core ideals:

• Care for self. We must first take care of ourselves so that we have the capacity to take care of others and do our best work each day.
• Care for colleagues. Demonstrating care and support of colleagues creates a workplace environment of respect, collaboration, collegiality, creativity, productivity, community and teamwork.
• Care for students. Chamberlain Care^® reflects our fundamental belief in the University’s responsibility and ability to achieve superior student outcomes for a diverse population of students. Care for students is operationalized through initiatives that lead to teaching excellence, extraordinary care and strong support for each student’s learning experience, motivating actions instead of demotivating actions and encouragement instead of discouragement in the face of challenges.

Chamberlain Care^® was launched as a major cultural transformation initiative that focused all university operations, resources and institutional assessment on creating a culture of care and achieving superior student outcomes. Chamberlain Care^® has become the lens through which all university operations, processes, practices, behaviors and interactions are viewed and assessed. The cultivation of the culture through attention to these ideals and holding ourselves accountable for the execution of care practices is how Chamberlain prepares generations of extraordinary healthcare professionals who will transform healthcare worldwide.

Philosophy & Framework of Nursing Education

Following the mission of Chamberlain University to educate, empower and embolden diverse nurses prepared to advance the health of people, families, communities and nations, we strive to prepare graduates to serve the needs of diverse communities including underserved populations.

Learning is designed to provide diverse students with the best academic experience and support services to become extraordinary nurses. This is done through application of the three aims embedded in our mission:

• To educate. A culture of care creates an academic environment in which students thrive by being appreciated for their wholeness and individuality and supported to discover and unlock their potential.
• To empower. Teaching is an enterprise of engagement and collaboration between students and faculty that fosters accountability and self-determination in the practice of nursing.
• To embolden. The learning environment is intentionally designed to promote and instill confidence in one’s professional identity as a nurse.

Chamberlain Care^® creates the framework for educating, empowering and emboldening students in the following ways:

• Curricula include concepts and competencies for development of care practices including teaching self-care practices to patients. Self-care is taught as a professional imperative for developing the capacity to care for others. Likewise, colleague care is emphasized as a way of promoting working environments of respect, collaboration, collegiality and teamwork.
• Pedagogical approaches focus on:
  • Engaging through fostering self-direction, reflection and deep learning
  • Individualizing learning aligning with strengths, diversity and desires of the learner
  • Developing clinical judgment through innovative experiential learning
  • Leveraging academic technologies that facilitate progressive and efficient attainment of learning outcomes
• Faculty are supported in developing, sustaining and enhancing these pedagogical competencies through a program of master instruction preparation, assessment and certification.
• Clinical education is designed using a holistic experiential learning model that recognizes and fosters each student’s professional potential.
• Campus and online leaders promote educational environments that exemplify and cultivate a culture of care that maximizes the use of self-care, colleague care and student care.
• A student success program is provided to all students through a community of faculty and staff coaches that personalize support.

General Education Learning Outcomes

• Cultural Diversity

Integrate diverse cultural perspectives to promote social justice.

• Ethical Service

Demonstrate a self-awareness of ethical beliefs within a global context.

• Information Literacy

Identify and evaluate information from a variety of sources, including numerical data.

• Critical Thinking

Incorporate analytical skills to explore and evaluate issues to develop sound conclusions.

• Effective Communication

Utilize independent and collaborative written/oral communication strategies and technologies to promote understanding and foster change.

Conceptual Framework of Nursing

Educational programs at Chamberlain are guided by a holistic health, person-centered, care-focused framework of nursing that emphasizes cultural humility and professional identify formation. Nursing is a discipline with a distinct body of knowledge built upon general education. The art of nursing culminates in the application of this knowledge in practice. Nursing practice encompasses the provision of care in defined roles from beginning to advanced, ranging from direct delivery of care to the provision of education, administration, systems and resources that promote the quality of care. The full spectrum of knowledge needed to practice nursing effectively requires the intellectual, physical, emotional, social and passion components of holistic discovery, learning and application.

Holistic Health is a way of living by appreciating the wholeness of life, expressing one’s highest potential, nurturing resources and relationships that support well-being and taking responsibility for advancing one’s own health. The role of the nurse is to support, promote and advance holistic health through educating, empowering and emboldening others.

Person-centered care involves the creation of respectful care that takes into account responsiveness to the patient’s preferences, needs and values (IOM, 2001). The patient is recognized as a full partner and source of control in their own care (Cronenwett, et al., 2007). Person-centered care at all levels requires planning and assessing care in a way that is responsive and meaningful to the person (Barnsteiner, Disch & Walton, 2014). Families, communities, organizations and populations are approached with the same perspective.

Care-focused nursing epitomizes Chamberlain Care through appreciating and recognizing the role of care in promoting the health and well-being of self, colleagues and patients. It advocates that nurses take accountability for being in the best position to provide extraordinary care to others and that they foster an environment of collegial support and respect. Care-focused nursing is aimed at applying principles of holistic health and person-centered care to persons, families, groups and communities as well as organizations. Care for self, care for colleagues and care for persons culminate in extraordinary nursing care and superior health outcomes.

Cultural Humility is a continual process of self-reflection, self-awareness and self-critique by healthcare providers in order to develop and maintain mutually respectful and useful partnerships with individuals, families and communities (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998). Rather than focusing on the mastery of many cultures as in cultural competence, cultural humility suggests that understanding other cultures requires a lifelong commitment to a learning process. This encourages an intentional examination of how the nurse’s beliefs, values and assumptions influence the delivery of healthcare and development of relationships with patients and their families (Kools, Chimwaza & Macha, 2014). ”Attaining cultural humility becomes not a goal but an active process, an ongoing way of being in the world and being in relationships with others and self,“ (Miller, 2009, p. 92).

Professional Identity Formation is a dynamic process that, “involves the internalization of core values and perspectives recognized as integral to the art and science of nursing,” (National League for Nursing, 2010, p. 68) that becomes self-evident over time. Students develop, embrace and operate from core values as they learn, gain experience and grow in the profession. The fundamental values of professional identity are obvious in all aspects of the nurse’s practice in advancing health and promoting ideals of the profession. “Professional identity is evident in the lived experience of the nurse, in their ways of ‘being,’ ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’” (p. 68). Formation of professional identity continues through the career of the nurse being dynamic, situated and lifelong (Crigger & Godfrey, 2014).

Extraordinary Nursing is a concept and an ideal expressed in vital competencies, regardless of level or focus, which fosters the greatest good, health and well-being of persons who are the recipients of nursing care. Extraordinary nursing goes beyond clinical expertise by delivering care that is compassionate and passionate expressed in appreciation of persons and communities to advance their own health. The extraordinary nurse exudes professionalism, is contagiously positive, goes beyond expectations, advocates for patients, enjoys teaching, is intentionally present, collaborates effectively, connects with families, uses evidence to promote the best care and is relentlessly committed to promoting health (Lefton, 2012).

We believe graduates with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree are prepared to provide safe, comprehensive, professional nursing care across the lifespan to individuals, families, aggregates and communities in global societies. Professional nursing care incorporates evidence-based principles, sciences and critical reasoning and judgment in the development of responses to real or perceived healthcare needs. The BSN graduate possesses the necessary knowledge and core competencies to meet the challenges of a dynamic and evolving profession in the 21st century. The BSN degree program provides the foundation for graduate study and beginning scholarship, encourages service to the profession and community and supports the concept of lifelong learning.

Barnsteiner, J., Disch, J., & Walton, M.K. (2014). Person and family centered care. Indianapolis, IN: Sigma Theta Tau International.

Crigger, N., & Godfrey, N. (2014). From the inside out: A new approach to teaching professional identify formation and professional ethics. Journal of Professional Nursing, 30(5), 376–382.

Cronenwett, L., Sherwood, G., Barnsteiner, J., Disch, J., Johnson, J., Mitchell, P., Warren, J. (2007). Quality and safety education for nurses. Nursing Outlook, 55(3), 122–131.

Institute of Medicine (IOM). (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

Kools, S., Chimwaza, A., & Macha, S. (2014). Cultural humility and working with marginalized populations in developing countries. Global Health Promotion, 22(1), 52–59.

Lefton, C. (2012). Strengthening the workforce through meaningful recognition. Nursing Economics, 33(6), 331-355.

Miller, S. (2009). Cultural humility is the first step to becoming global care providers. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic, and Neonatal Nursing, 38(1), 92–93.

National League for Nursing. (2010). Outcomes and competencies for graduates of practical/vocational, diploma, associate degree, baccalaureate, master’s, practice doctorate, and research doctorate programs in nursing. New York: Author.

Tervalon, M., & Murray-Garcia, J. (1998). Cultural humility versus cultural competence: A critical distinction in defining physician training outcomes in multicultural education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(1), 117–125.