The most recent graduates of Calhoun Community College’s associate’s degree and licensed practical nursing programs performed extremely well on their licensure exams, with both groups outpacing state and national passage rates.

Bret McGill, dean of Calhoun’s Health Sciences division, said of the 127 registered nursing students taking the National Council Licensure Examination during the 2018 testing cycle, a total of 117 — or 92.13 percent — passed the exam on their first attempt. The outcome exceeds both the state (87 percent) and national (88.3 percent) rates.

Calhoun’s three-year average for passage rates for the associate’s degree in nursing exam is 92.2 percent. At the same time, Calhoun LPN graduates had even better results, with a perfect 100 percent passage rate from the 26 students testing, compared to the state average of 94.7 percent and the national rate of 85.9 percent. Three-year average for the college’s LPN graduates is 97.14 percent.

McGill attributed that outcome to several factors.

“We feel that changes made over the last several years in our program such as admissions standards, increased professional development for the faculty, and utilization of best practices in curriculum delivery and assessment from across the Alabama Community College System have contributed significantly to the continued gains we’ve experienced in our passage rates.”

“We are ecstatic with these most recent test results,” said Dr. Joe Burke, Calhoun’s interim president. “We are so very proud of the outstanding performance of our students on their licensure exams and applaud the efforts of our nursing faculty and staff in training and preparing these students as they successfully enter the workforce.”