St. Joseph Hospital in Nashua, NH, and Franklin Pierce College recently signed an agreement to create a new program that will help nurses turn associate’s degrees into bachelor’s degrees over a two-year period. The program will help move nurses toward master’s degrees, which are necessary to become staff educators. That, in turn, should help to stem the nursing shortage in New England.

Students interested in becoming nurse educators will make up one track of the three-pronged program. Management and community nursing will also be centers of focus in the courses, which will be offered in Nashua.

Sources: Nashua Telegraph and St. Joseph Hospital press release