This story was updated Monday at 2:40 p.m. with a statement from VTC interim President Patricia Moulton.
Editor’s note: This story by Derek Carson first appeared in the Bennington Banner on Friday, Dec. 2.
[B]ENNINGTON – Students in Vermont Technical College’s practical nursing program have said that technical problems and a lack of faculty support have led to more than half the class failing this semester.
There are currently 22 students enrolled in the course at a Bennington site, which is accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing. The one-year, 47-credit program allows students to earn a PN certificate, and makes them eligible to continue studying to earn a Associate of Science in Nursing degree and a Bachelor in Science of Nursing degree if they so choose.
Fifteen of the Bennington PN students complained in a Nov. 28 letter to Patricia Moulton, the interim president of Vermont Technical College, that the quality of the program “is not meeting the same expectations and outcomes as it has in the previous years.”
The students wrote that “numerous issues” are affecting the quality of program at the Bennington site. They cite issues with the teleconferencing system used for remote, online instruction and a lack of adequate staffing at the Bennington campus.
“Learning over telepresence has been a huge change and adjustment for most of the students at the Bennington Campus and the glitches that we face only adds to the frustration of the students,” the students write. “Frustration then makes it difficult as a group to be receptive of any information throughout the lectures. We have spent a large amount of time on technical difficulties throughout this semester and it has reduced the amount of time available for educational information to be provided to us and elaborated on from an instructor. The first few tests had some malfunctions which were fixed but then again added to the level of frustration.”
The Bennington site director for Vermont Tech left last spring and the position has remained open. The students say that as a result, no one is available to provide support to students and faculty “on a regular basis.”
“There is one academic advisor for the entire campus here in Bennington and this has become an issue,” they write. “It is nearly impossible for one person to advise and look over such a large number of students. We often feel as though we have no faculty to voice our opinions or concerns to. Most of our concerns have had to be addressed via email as we lack adequate staffing and availability on campus.”
Anne Smeglin retired as site director for Bennington this spring, and Moulton said the college has had difficulty finding someone to fill the position, which requires a highly qualified candidate. In the meantime, she said, the college is currently interviewing for a position that would provide technical support to the Bennington campus, to help deal with the issues that have been plaguing the system.
She said some of the tech problems were the result of unfamiliarity with the new system, which was used in some of the VTC centers last year but is new to Bennington. The glitches have been resolved over the course of the semester, Moulton said, and some have been beyond VTC’s control, such as a Comcast service outage that coincided with the class.
In terms of staffing, Moulton said the Middlebury campus faculty that are teaching the class have visited Bennington occasionally, and that Cindy Martindill, the college’s associate dean of nursing, has visited the campus roughly once a week to work with students.
The practical nursing program in Bennington previously used Vermont Interactive Technologies, a nonprofit program that was funded by the state, for long-distance learning requirements. VIT’s budget was eliminated this year.
Moulton said that she visited and spoke with students at the Bennington campus about their concerns on Tuesday. While she could not comment on exactly how many students will have a failing grade when the term ends on Monday (anything below a 77 counts as a failing grade), she said that the claim that half of the 22 students were failing “is not accurate.” Last year, 16 students graduated from the program.
One student, Austin Chaffin, withdrew from the program earlier in September, and emailed Moulton and the heads of the nursing program about his reasons for leaving.
“My choice to withdraw from Vermont Tech’s PN nursing program came after much reflection on the fact that this year’s PN program did not feel like the same caliber as years before,” he wrote, “We were not informed until the day of orientation (10 days before classes start, and after I had already paid for the semester) that we would have no teacher in the classroom. We were to watch a live stream video of a teacher from another campus, and use microphones to communicate with her.
“The technology used was faulty to a point where class time was nearly always a stop and go process,” Chaffin wrote. “The microphones didn’t work half of the time, and the sound quality of the video conference program used was also inadequate at times. Videos the instructor could show her class would not appear on our screen, so we would sit and wait. It seemed as though nothing was done to accommodate these hindrances, which is detrimental to the education we as students are paying for.”
Editor’s note: Moulton issued the following statement on Monday.
We are very grateful to the students for choosing Vermont Technical College. Our program is well respected in the nursing world because of the high standards of the program and the quality of our graduates. As a measure of the program’s quality, Vermont Tech’s national board exam (NCLEX) pass rate for the 2016 PN graduates was 100% compared to the 85% national average. The rigor in the program is purposeful to prepare students to become successful nurses. While this is the first semester the Bennington PN program is using the Telepresence system, it is the same as is taught at all Vermont Tech locations around the state. We know the rigors of a college education are a major adjustment, as well as learning via distance education technology. It takes commitment and hard work to balance jobs, family and education to be successful. These students have a clear passion for the work. While the college is precluded from speaking to individual student performance due to our privacy policies, it would be inaccurate to characterize “half” of the Bennington PN class as failing. That the Bennington Banner led with this misinformation (not to mention discussing student grades at all) is a disservice to our students. Our successful students will go on to work in local healthcare settings, advance to the next level of their education to become registered nurses, and provide the workforce needed for the nursing shortage in Vermont.
