newgrad06

Thank you all so much for your input and support. It really helps to know that someone else, especially other nurses, understand my feelings on this. Unfortunately, the same group of individuals who started all this nonsense also take to writing passive-aggressive emails to the whole class basically saying if we don't support them we are not "team players" and we aren't be "advocates." Even today one of them posted some crap on the school course web site that was very insulting to those of us who do not agree, saying about how we should all be supporting each other and not taking sides. If the person who wrote it had not spearheaded this whole mess, it might have been a nice message, but coming from the person who wrote it it was very insulting since her and the SNO officers are the ones who just up and decided they were not inviting our Dean to the pinning! So I guess her real message was "shut up and just go along with what we want, or you're taking sides and causing a conflict!" I wrote a retort several times, but never did hit "reply", because I feel that they are all behaving like children on our class message board and I just don't want to stoop to that level. Anyway, I am happy to say I spoke to my faculty contact and I was glad to hear that they do realise it is a few people, and that this is not the consensus of the entire class. I am drafting a letter to my instructors and to the dean to thank them for all they have done for me, which I will give them no matter what. I guess really at this point I will sit tight and see what happens in the next few days. I count more than 80 people in our class, and there were only maybe 1/3 of those at the meeting to vote on excluding the dean, and as those not present/told about it hear about what happened, they are starting to protest. It just all really stinks. I just want to celebrate my accomplishment and have my family see me pinned by my instructors, with our Dean there to congratulate us. But I just can't be a part of purposefully embarassing/excluding our dean. It just all stinks. I am hoping in the next few days others who feel like I do will come out of the woodwork. It's getting kinda lonely up here on my high-horse.

Hi there. I have a big problem I would like input on. I am graduating in May 2006 from a community college program. It took me four long years to do all the pre-req's and make it through to graduation when many of my classmates have failed along the way. Early in this last semester, the SNO officers and a few others decided that they were speaking for the entire class when they decided the HESI exam should not be a requirement to graduate, and they started a petition and called meetings with the nursing teachers to get it changed. (The requirment for passing HESI with a minimum score was not something we just heard about, we were all aware that students from previous semesters has failed soley based on HESI performance and had to re-take the entire semester.) At the time, I did not agree with the way the SNO handeled it, and they had secret meetings and decided what to do without our entire class voting on it. Meetings occurred without the SNO advisor present, and it was all hush-hush, and any student who voiced a differing opinion was not told about any more meetings. Well, that all went down, the SNO members went above the Dean of Nursing and complained to college administrators, again, not sure what actually happened because although I go to all announced official meetings, all the info I have about what actually transpired is second-hand and gossip coming from students, so I can't entirely trust it all. But the end result was suddenly the dean of the college overulled the dean of nursing and allowed those who did not pass the HESI to graduate, but the nursing dean maintains that they will have to take the HESI every several weeks until they pass or she will not vertify them to sit for the NCLEX. That all happened, has been over with, and now the SNO officers and a few others have decided that they are not inviting the Nursing Dean to our pinning and will not ask her to make a speech as she has traditionally done, and in fact for our "speaker" they have decided that a certain classmate of our(one who spear-headed the whole HESI fiasco) will speak as a "voice for us." I am extremely upset, and no longer want to attend my own pinning. The Dean of nursing is upset with us and feels insulted, and I don't blame her. Apparently, from what the SNO officers say, there has been a lot of personal confrontations going on behind closed doors with them and the dean--well, I don't know, and who knows what really happened. I would be angry too, if I was the dean, and they went above my head like they did about the HESI thing. But now the class is saying they don't even want the dean at the ceremony? I feel like they way the SNO has operated is higly unprofessional, disrespectful, and embarassing. If I was an employer and knew what they had done, there is no way I would want to hire any of these people. Furthermore, the SNO has made decisions claiming they represent our class, yet our class did not vote on these things officially or only a small number of people were present at non-school sanctioned meetings that they did have real votes at. I am not willing to sit there and look like an idiot in front of my family while my classmate stands up and rants and raves about our "horrible" school and claims she speaks for all of us, while they exclude the dean. I think it looks petty and juvenile. And furthermore, what on earth do they think they will accomplish by behaving like this? The Dean could very well take her sweet time certifying us all for the boards, and there is nothing we could do about it. No matter what has happened, or if they think the dean acted unprofessionally, I think we should stand up and act like professionals and adults, not like juveniles who refuse to invite the dean to play with us. And it makes me so angry they keep saying they speak for our class, when our class itself has never approved or voted on much of the decisions made. Can I get your opinions on this from an objective view? I think I am way too emotional right now to rationally react. As nurses, what do you think of this behavior from students? Would you join in on something like this if it happened with your union, for example? And how do you think it makes us look as new nurses entering the workforce?