“It doesn’t get any better than this,” declared an evaluator from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) remarking on the level of the accreditation issued to the UMass Boston College of Nursing and Health Sciences (CNHS).

On April 17, the CCNE, which evaluates approximately seventy-five percent of nursing schools nationally, accredited both the undergraduate and graduate nursing programs at UMB for the next ten years, the maximum term possible.

In a memo congratulating the CNHS on their achievement, Chancellor Jo Ann Gora noted, “The commission found the College to be in compliance with all the standards for evaluation and issued no recommendations regarding weaknesses needing to be corrected, something which is almost unheard of.”

Four members of the CCNE, representing peer institutions in North Carolina, San Francisco, Michigan and Florida, spent three days on campus last October. The evaluators met with students, staff, faculty, and alumni. They also met with a number of local health care providers, including the Geiger-Gibson Community Health Center, Mass General Hospital, Hebrew Rehabilitation Center for the Aged, Children’s Hospital and the Pine Street Inn.

“The most impressive thing was the community turnout and their support of the program,” stated the dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Brenda Cherry. “They talked about how they have interacted with our students and how our students and faculty have contributed to health care in the community.”

Albert Whitaker, an assistant to Dean Cherry, explained that the mission of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences and its relation to the overall mission of the university was an important factor in the evaluation process. “It’s important that the mission of the university also be the mission of the college [CNHS],” he noted. “We acknowledge an overriding responsibility to address the needs of urban populations in Massachusetts.”

“We were very, very pleased with the outcome,” concluded Cherry. “It was the result of a lot of hard work by the staff, students, and faculty.”