The
Vol. 97 Issue 8
Collegiate Barton College’s Newspaper since 1927
Feb. 26, 2020
Barton grieves unexpected death of student By Shannon Baker Co-Editor
Barton sophomore William B. Alexander died unexpectedly in the early hours of the morning on Feb. 18. He was not on campus at the time of his death. Alexander was a transfer student from Middlesborough, England. He transferred to Barton during the Fall semester of 2020 as Business Administration major. He was also on the men’s golf team. Barton College President Doug Searcy released a
statement on Feb. 18 asking students to join together in prayer for Alexander’s family as they grieve. Howard Chapel was open for prayer and candles were available for lighting in remembrance of Alexander. Chaplain David FinneganHosey offered to pray, talk, or sit with students if they desired company while in the chapel. A memorial wall was also set up in the Hamlin Student Center and remained available for students to visit until Feb. 26. Students had the opportunity to write
notes to Alexander’s family and the Campus Life office took care of delivering the written messages. A memorial service is being planned for the Barton community with Alexander’s friends and professors in mind. The date and time of the memorial service has not been set. “We want to schedule it at a date and time when the people that he was closest with, the members of the golf team and also the tennis team as well as his other friends and faculty, are able to be there,” said Barton
Barton Nursing program excels By Cassidi Hinson Social Media Editor
Barton’s School of Nursing Class of 2020 passed the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX) with a 100% pass rate. The all-female nursing class of 26 was able to pass the exam on the first try, despite COVID-19 being thrown in the mix. “It was like yes we did get it right,” said Dr. Sharon Shepard, Dean of the School of Nursing. “It’s certainly something that you hope for, but you don’t expect all the time. Actually, in this particular year, for it
to be 100%, it was like yes.” The news didn’t reach Barton all at once. “I have a text group with my faculty, so every time somebody passed it was like that’s one more, and then it’s this many out of this many, then it was okay we are finally at 90% even if nobody else passes, then somebody else passed and we were above last year. We had one person that was not able to take her licensing exam because until November so, it was November before we found out. It’s not official until the Board of Nursing posts it, so I was checking the web page
Provost Gary Daynes. Daynes also said that President Searcy had the responsibility of calling Alexander’s family in the United Kingdom to share the news of his death. Alexander’s family is not expected to be able to come to Barton in the near future. “He has been working with them but at this point it doesn’t seem like they will be able to come given travel difficulties and coronavirus restrictions in England,” Daynes said.
for the board to see when they were going to put it up there. It finally went up and it was like, yes,” said Shepard. Where there many programs available for people to become nurses, all require the NCLEX. “Most people who are nurses will tell you it’s the hardest test they’ve ever taken in their life and it’s not like anything they’ve ever taken. Students prepare for it from the minute they start college essentially,” said Shepard. The faculty and staff within the nursing program are expected to work directly with the nursing students to find out their needs, to
Sophomore William B. Alexander.
prepare them for the NCLEX. According to Shepard, it’s an exam like no other. “The test is what’s called computer-adaptive so it’s kind of an odd test, in that you can have as few as 75 questions or as many as 265. The way it sort of works is you get a question and depending upon how each individual person answers that question the next question comes, so let’s say you answer the question wrong then they might take it down a little bit and ask you something else, then they will come back to the same concept. So, it’s an unpredictable test, it’s very, very rigidly
monitored when you take it and it’s something most people don’t want to do twice, to be honest with you,” she said. Passing and preparing for the NCLEX in the traditional classroom/clinical setting, is considered difficult in the nursing world and having the prep online in their last semester posed a challenge for the students. “The biggest thing that made a difference was COVID-19, but they were a really good group anyhow. They were basically a strong group, small group, closely knit, very attentive to each other and to the needs of Continued on page 10