EWU graduates first class of nursing program

The first cohort of a new nursing program at Eastern Washington University flipped their tassels from the right to the left during a commencement ceremony Friday morning.

The crowd in the Reese Court arena on the Cheney campus cheered and stomped the bleachers.

“You are now an Eagle for life,” Kelsey Hatch-Brecek, director of the alumni association, told the new graduates of the College of Health Science and Public Health. “Our alumni community is filled with entrepreneurs, innovators, leaders, artists, scientists, athletes and changemakers. And today, we get to add nurses to that list.”

The School of Nursing, which began in fall 2023, graduated 40 students with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. Of those students, 37 are from in-state, most are from Eastern Washington and most have jobs lined up at local hospitals.

Donna Bachand, nursing program administrator and department chair, believes the program will help address the state’s nursing shortage. Washington ranks high among states facing a severe nursing shortage, according to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, with an estimated shortfall of more than 13,000 registered nurses.

The program based at EWU’s Spokane campus is about a decade in the making. Bachand took the helm seven years ago and spent much of that working through regulations to build the program until it received funding from the Legislature in 2022.

“The pandemic really highlighted the deep need the region has for nurses,” Bachand said.

The first class had 132 applications, including 80 EWU students who had done prerequisite coursework.

“I don’t know how to describe what it’s like sitting in a room by yourself for years before hiring faculty and seeing your first student, but today is the culminating event,” Bachand said. “My heart was beating on the front row, thinking please don’t cry at the microphone. It’s very emotional. It’s just gratifying.”

Alexana Bueno is a first-generation college student from the Tri-Cities who will return there to work as an oncology nurse working with cancer patients at Kadlec Regional Medical Center, where she interned.

Her path to graduation hasn’t been easy. She moved from Washington to Mexico when she was only a few years old and returned when she was 17, speaking little English. She picked up the language during her last two years of high school.

Compassion that nurses showed her when members of her family were dying inspired her to work in health care.

Her father died when she was a child in Mexico. She couldn’t see him when he was in the hospital, but the nurses talked to her about how he was doing.

Then, after she returned to the United States, her brother had a stroke.

“Again, nurses were there for me,” Bueno said. “They took excellent care of him. He passed, but they were always there for me and my family.”

Bueno said support from EWU’s College Assistance Migrant Program helped her navigate college life, especially as she commuted two-hours each way from the Tri-Cities until she found housing.

“They helped me so much because my English was limited, they explained everything to me,” Bueno said.

The nursing program also was challenging because she had to learn medical terms in English, but her teachers and classmates supported her through it.

“I know it is going to be an adjustment, but I’m really excited to go back to my community and serve as a nurse there,” Bueno said.

She wrote “Borderless Dreams” in cursive on her graduation cap.

“I’m very proud of all of our grads,” Bachand said. “I’m very proud of the work my faculty have done to help them reach this milestone in their career paths. I can’t wait to see what they do.”

EWU’s nursing school will compliment other nursing programs in the area. Gonzaga University is graduating 76 bachelor of science in nursing graduates this spring along with 107 masters of science in nursing and 12 doctors of nursing practice, according to spokesman Dan Nailen. Washington State University is graduating about 245 undergraduate nurses and another 67 with advanced degrees across the Spokane, Tri-Cities, Yakima and Vancouver campuses, spokeswoman Gina Raebel said.