William Carey closing New Orleans campus
Published 9:59 pm Friday, August 1, 2014
William Carey University is closing its New Orleans campus in December when 80 current nursing students have completed their courses.
“The reason we have closed the (nursing) program in New Orleans is that the enrollmentsince (Hurricane) Katrina has not come back as we expected. We have subsidized the program for five years and for financial reasons have made the decision to close it,” William Carey President Tommy King told The Hattiesburg American in an email.
At the time of Katrina, enrollment on the New Orleans campus was 337 students. The hurricane caused the campus to close for six months from August 2005 until February 2006, hurting enrollment.
However, William Carey will offer a nursing program in Louisiana in a bachelor’s program starting this spring at Delgado Community College’s Northshore campus in Slidell, La.
Barbara Hamilton, executive assistant to the King, said the Louisiana State Board of Nursing has approved the program. Hamilton said there are already 12 students enrolled on the Delgado site.
The Northshore campus, with an enrollment of 2,000 students overall, will provide classroom, computer lab and library facilities to William Carey students and faculty members, said Cheryl Myers, Delgado’s Charity School of Nursing executive dean.
Delgado has an agreement with William Carey that provides a fast-track to graduates, who have their associate nursing degrees, to get their bachelor’s degrees.
William Carey has operated a nursing program in New Orleans since 1969, when the college merged with the Mather School of Nursing located at Baptist Hospital. Since the late 1980s, the nursing program has resided on the campus of the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.
The private Baptist university also has campuses in Hattiesburg and Harrison County.
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Information from: The Hattiesburg American, http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com
