Need help finding regional accreditation for my closed Nursing school..

Does anyone know how I can find out if my degree nursing school program was regionally accredited? It closed in 1984. I've been practicing as a Registered Nurse for 40 years, and have recently moved to Georgia from Florida. I graduated from a hospital program in Illinois in 1970. The Georgia Board of Nursing is requiring proof of REGIONAL accreditation, though it was nationally accredited by the National League for Nursing. If I can't provide it, I can't obtain my license in the state of Georgia!! I AM working with my alumni association, but the secretary seems to be at a loss also. Help!

 

I am assuming that this was one of the diploma programs, as opposed to a degree granting program (i.e. associates or bachelors degree). If it was a hospital diploma program, I'm betting that the school wasn't regionally accredited, it had no reason to be back then. However, occasionally these programs were affiliated with a community college.

It is weird that Georgia is giving you problems, because hospital programs like yours were pretty common at one time, and someone like you should be grandfathered in. This is probably one of those issues where the person you are talking to is to young to remember when the old nursing diploma programs were around. Back in the late 60's, there were over 800 of these hospital based programs, today there are less than 100.

Contact the Georgia Nurses Association and see if they can help you.

Also, either now or later, you may want to consider going to an RN-to-BSN program, and getting your degree. My grandma did that after a few decades of being an RN. It is pretty cool going to your grandmother's college graduation.

 

Sometimes programs morph. For instance, I'm only familiar with 1 Illinois hospital program- Moline Public Hospital. They closed, and after 2 other names, are now Trinity School of Nursing (hospital based and regionally accredited NOW) My point, is that if they reopened or morphed into another name, there may be more current records.

Also, this sounds wrong to me, but you asked on a DL board as your introductory post, so I'm not even sure if you'll be back. My suggestion is to ask over at Allnurses dot com and you'll likely get much better results in how to solve your problem. All the best!

 

Submit your question to the regional accreditation agency for Georgia:

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
Commission on Colleges
1866 Southern Lane,
Decatur, GA 30033
(404) 679-4500
[email protected] <[email protected]>

 

If your program was in Illinois, then the applicable regional accreditor is the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools. They have a directory of accredited institutions, which includes closed institutions as well as those that are currently operating. If your school was regionally accredited, it will be listed in their directory, which you can search here.

 

Kkarn,
I'm having the exact same problem. Did you get an email from a license analyst with initials B.B.? I also went to a diploma program in California and graduated in 84 and the school is closed. It was NLN accredited but not regionally accredited. Did you check the list of 6 regional accrediting bodies to see if your school was on any of their lists? You can find the 6 regional agencies by just typing "Regional accreditation" in google. I wonder if this means we can't get a GA license? Very worrisome.