Saga – Verle Waters – Part 2

This episode of the NLN Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga track is part two of two celebrating the life of Verle Waters. The podcast explores Verle's involvement in the NLN Curriculum Revolution, where she encouraged associate degree nursing (ADN) faculty to embrace innovation and reduce rigid classroom protocols. Despite challenges, Verle persisted in fostering engaged learning and collaboration between educators and clinical partners, leading to the development of the senior preceptorship model. Her efforts in securing funding and promoting new educational practices significantly impacted nursing education. The episode concludes by honoring Verle's legacy as a champion of nursing education reform and her advice to always welcome innovation and never turn your back on a revolution.

Dedicated to excellence in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the leading organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education. Find past episodes of the NLN Nursing EDge podcast online. Get instant updates by following the NLN on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and YouTube. For more information, visit NLN.org.

Transcript

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Welcome to Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga as we use stories to connect the past to the present  and then our future as we reimagine our teaching and learning. As we celebrate the NLN Year of the  Nurse Educator we pay tribute to extraordinary nurses who've made significant contributions to  nursing education. We dive into the stories of nurse educators who recognized a need,  challenge traditional customs, and influenced transformative change. Welcome to part two as  we honor Verle Waters - scholar, reformer, and champion of multiple pathways to professional  nursing practice. Part one explored how Verle joined and led two revolutionary movements in  

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the pioneering and tumultuous days of the early ADN nursing education programs  and the entry into practice debates in the 1970s and 80s. Part two will explore Verle's call to  join the NLN Curriculum Revolution and to take her turn once again on the barricades of reform. In 1960 Verle moved to California to create the associate degree nursing program at San  Jose City College. There she met a fellow faculty member Em Bevis, another curriculum reformer and  a leader of the NLN Curriculum Revolution who is highlighted in this year's series of Saga.  Throughout the lifelong friendship they shared a passion for curriculum reform.  Verle described her entry into yet another revolution in her words: Verle encouraged ADN faculty to listen to ideas embraced by the revolution to catch the spirit  of innovation championed by its leaders. Verle recognized that over the years, since the heady  days of the new ADN programs in the 1950s, faculty had responded to backlash and criticism of ADN  graduates from baccalaureate colleagues, by, in her words: Verle actively joined Em  and others to embrace the revolutionary mantra to leverage an assault on rigid classroom protocols,  lectures, and "covering content." She participated in the national discussions about  enlarging the sense of community, incorporating new pedagogies, changing the relationship between  teacher and student, and responding to a new and more diverse student population.  She encouraged ADN faculty to return to their roots of transformation and innovation.  Yet faculty felt the pressure of ensuring that the two-year programs were packed with content and  radical change was sporadic; there were pockets of innovation, but sustained and far-reaching  innovation never materialized. Yet, like any seasoned revolutionary, Verle persisted. She  found ways to embrace the tenets of the Curriculum Revolution to foster engaged learning and reduce  power structures between teacher, practitioner, and student. By this time Verle had moved to  Ohlone College in Fremont, California as assistant dean of instruction for the health sciences, she  witnessed a change in the education-service relationship, as faculty and their clinical  partners identified the need to collaborate to ensure a competent nursing workforce.  She determined to facilitate ways for faculty to capitalize on this growing partnership. Verle  secured funding from the W.K Kellogg Foundation to pilot a preceptorship program for senior nursing  students. Today the senior preceptorship model is the norm in most collegiate nursing programs - a transformative educational practice that had its beginnings in the Curriculum Revolution movement.  Nursing education owes a great debt to Verle Waters: innovator, champion of nursing education  career pathways, leader of associate degree nursing education for half a century, tireless advocate of  experimentation. Verle was a student of change and radical new beginnings. She fully recognized that  to lead faculty into uncertainty she needed to be persuasive, not prescriptive. In her words: In 2007 she wrote an essay about her journey and left us with a final piece of advice. She urged  faculty to welcome the opportunity to innovate and reframe educational practices, to be open to  seemingly radical new ideas, and she added,"Never turn your back on a Revolution." And so the Saga continues and may our Saga continue as we bring to a close this episode  of Nursing EDge Unscripted Saga. Thank you for joining us