Bluffton University is launching a four-year academic program in nursing that will enable students to earn an associate degree and become registered nurses, then seamlessly complete a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree.

To lead the program—on which Bluffton is collaborating with Northwest State Community College in Archbold, Ohio—the university has hired Sherri Winegardner, a Bluffton alumna, as director of nursing and associate professor of nursing. She will begin her work in January.

The first students in the program are expected to start classes in fall 2016. Current registered nurses who have decided they would like to finish the BSN degree will be sought for the first year’s cohort, said Dr. Sally Weaver Sommer, vice president and dean of academic affairs at Bluffton. First-year students will be recruited for the cohort beginning the entire four-year program in fall 2017.

“At Bluffton, nursing students will study alongside students with varying majors, backgrounds and perspectives,” Weaver Sommer said. “Our values of discovery, community, respect and service will serve these students well as they prepare to work with people of diverse backgrounds.”

Participants who enroll as first-year students will live on the Bluffton campus and, for the first two years, take classes both from the university and from Northwest State, the dean explained. The community college will actually grant the associate degree, which allows students to sit for the registered nurse exam.

At that point, students may enter the BSN completion program, which they would finish after their fourth year. More health care facilities are now requiring that their nurses have the bachelor’s degree, Weaver Sommer noted, adding that clinical experiences will be offered at sites in Lima and Findlay, as well as in Bluffton.

The collaboration with Northwest State dates to fall 2012, when Tom Stuckey, the college’s president and an adjunct instructor in Bluffton’s master of business administration program, first approached the university about a cooperative arrangement. Planning began soon after that, and will continue this winter and spring

Winegardner, a 1991 Bluffton graduate, returns to her alma mater from Brown Mackie College in Findlay, where she has been administrator of the associate of applied science nursing program and associate administrator of the practical nursing program since last year.

The Lima resident previously worked at Findlay’s Blanchard Valley Hospital, where, at various times over 30 years, she served as a critical care registered nurse and patient care coordinator; director of critical care services; and, for her last seven years there, as director of nursing. She has also worked at Baton Rouge Senior Health Services Community in Lima, The Heritage in Findlay and at Centene Corp., and has taught at Ohio Northern University.

Winegardner earned a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree in 2014 from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. She holds master’s degrees in nursing and health care administration from the Medical College of Ohio—now the University of Toledo Medical Center—and the University of Phoenix, respectively.