Hannah Murphy Buc, Ph.D, RN
Assistant Dean for Professional Practice and Direct Entry Pathways
Kenneth R. Frese DNP, RN, ACNS-BC, NPD-BC
Assistant Professor and Program Director
Curriculum Overview
The terminal objectives of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program state required BSN graduate outcomes. The terminal objectives, derived from the Mission and Core Values of the Berkley School of Nursing, require that the BSN graduate is prepared to:
- Practice professional nursing informed by the Jesuit Pedagogical Paradigm and the Berkley School of Nursing Mission and Core Values.
- Demonstrate the use of critical thinking and clinical judgment in clinical decision-making.
- Formulate a personal and professional ethical framework to guide conduct and decision-making in professional nursing practice.
- Conduct evidence-based nursing practice, evaluate this practice, and communicate the outcomes to improve professional nursing practice.
- Demonstrate excellence as a nurse generalist in nursing care across the lifespan in disease prevention, health promotion, acute and chronic disease care, restorative care, and hospice/supportive care.
- Evaluate appropriateness of leadership and management theories before implementation into nursing practice.
- Demonstrate patient safety and quality in assessment and delivery of healthcare.
- Evaluate the health policy process to improve health care for all.
- Demonstrate a commitment to personal and professional development through participation in continuing education and professional organizations.
- Demonstrate a commitment to humanitarian service delivered appropriately in a culturally diverse society as a component of professional nursing practice.
- Communicate and collaborate effectively in planning, conducting, and evaluating patient-centric care through including the patient, the health care team, significant others, and community to improve the quality of health care delivery.
The traditional four-year BSN program is designed for high school graduates who wish to combine core requirements in the arts, sciences and humanities with preparation for a career in professional nursing. The curriculum includes a core of knowledge in the humanities and the behavioral, physical, and biological sciences, as well as the theory and practice of professional nursing. Coursework in bioethics and leadership prepares graduates to take their place in the current and future health care delivery system.
The nursing component of the curriculum provides for development of clinical skills as well as a strong theoretical base. Nursing coursework and experiential learning will begin in the first year. The senior clinical practicum provides one-on-one clinical practice in an area of the student’s interest to expand their knowledge and leadership skills in preparation for professional nursing practice.
After completion of the baccalaureate program, graduates are eligible to take the NCLEX-RN examination for licensure to practice as professional nurses.
The program is accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education and approved by the District of Columbia Board of Nursing.
The Berkley School of Nursing is a member of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Nursing Association.
Clinical experiences are arranged within the surrounding metropolitan area including the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia. Students are responsible for their transportation to these clinical sites.
Safety and Quality
The BSN Program aligns with the Quality Safety Education for Nurses project (QSEN) and prepares their graduate nurses with the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) necessary to continuously improve the quality and safety of the healthcare systems within which they work.
Commitment to Wellness
An animation of the Jesuit value of ‘cura personalis’ is the BSN program’s formal and informal instruction and provision of opportunities for creating healthy self care behaviors that promote wellness and resiliency. Furthermore, this intention addresses the known impact of positive wellness and mindfulness behaviors on professional clinical nurses as a lifelong practice.
Sigma Theta Tau
The BSN Program participates in Sigma Theta Tau, the International Nursing Honor Society. Sigma Theta Tau honors practitioners and students of nursing who exemplify outstanding qualities of leadership, scholarship, and service to the profession of nursing. Tau Chapter was founded at the Georgetown University School of Nursing in 1960. Students who are in the top 35% of their class in their senior year are invited to join.
Student Nurses Association at Georgetown
The Georgetown Student Nurses’ Association (SNAG) mentors the professional role development of future registered nurses and facilitates development of standards, ethics and competencies that students will need as responsible and accountable leaders and members of the nursing profession. This mission is accomplished by chapter-led and nationwide programs that provide educational resources, leadership opportunities, and career guidance. All undergraduate nursing students at Georgetown are eligible to join. Members are expected to adhere to the National Student Nurses Association Code of Academic and Clinical Conduct.
Student Professional Responsibility
Students are responsible for reviewing, understanding and abiding by the regulations, procedures and requirements as described in all official publications of Georgetown University and of the Berkley School of Nursing. These are found specifically in the Undergraduate Bulletin as well as the Current Students Resources section of the BSON website. In addition, students are required to adhere to regulations and guidelines from Health Care Settings (in use as clinical sites), Professional Licensing Boards, Federal, State and Local Health Care Authorities and Professional Nursing Organizations, including the American Nurses Association “Code of Ethics for Nurses”.
Clinical Clearances Academic Policies
All student nurses are expected to meet and maintain certain health requirements. All of the clinical clearance requirements can be found in the direct entry program handbook. Failure to meet any of the requirements will jeopardize the ability to attend clinical courses.
Academic Policies
Additional academic policies governing the BSN program can be found in the direct entry programs handbook.
University Core BSN Specific Requirements
Course List
| Code |
Title |
Credits |
| |
| PHIL 1500 | Intro to Philosophy | 3 |
| NURS 2254 | Intro to Health Care Ethics | 3 |
| Total Credits | 6 |
Major Requirements
Georgetown Core Curriculum
The Georgetown Core Curriculum (Georgetown Core) is a distinctive expression of Georgetown University’s identity as a student-centered research university rooted in the Jesuit and Catholic tradition. The Georgetown Core is a two-tiered program. The first tier – the “shared core” – has been created and approved by the Main Campus Core Curriculum Committee and is shared by all undergraduates as a common core experience. The second tier of the requirement – the “school-specific core” – is designed and determined by each of the undergraduate schools, embodying the shared learning goals of the university Core while furthering the specific mission and tradition of each school. Both the shared and school-specific cores change over time, balancing the traditional ethos of a liberal arts education with the changing needs of our students in a changing world. Ultimately, it is the hope that the entirety of a Georgetown education – the cores, majors and minors, and electives – will lead students to embody as life-long habits the goals described in the Georgetown Core Curriculum Learning Goals.
More information about the Georgetown Core Curriculum can be found on the Provost’s Core Curriculum website.
Georgetown Shared Core Requirements
The core requirements that form the first tier, the common experience across the University, are outlined below. Georgetown courses fulfilling each of these requirements are designated “Core: [specific requirement]” in the Attributes in the Schedule of Classes.
Philosophy – 2 Courses
Through the Core, the Philosophy Department is committed to providing courses that promote students’ personal growth as human beings in search of meaningful lives, foster their development as responsible citizens, and offer effective introductions to the discipline of philosophy. The learning goals shared by courses in the Philosophy Core are:
- Understand what philosophy is, how it differs from other academic disciplines, and what its primary areas of inquiry are.
- Understand and construct arguments.
- Describe and analyze complex problems.
- Read, write and speak effectively.
- Engage critically and constructively with moral problems and decisions.
- Apply philosophical analysis, argumentation, and critical reflection to the study of other disciplines.
Please refer to each school/college curriculum for specific courses that will fulfill this requirement.
Theology and Religious Studies – 2 Courses
Through the Core, the Theology and Religious Studies Department is committed to fostering in students a critically appreciative awareness of the religious dimension of human existence, and to assisting students in reflecting upon their own experience and understanding in that enlarged context. The first course provides this foundation while the second course allows students to develop their critical awareness by applying it to a particular area of interest in religion or theology.
The learning goals shared by courses in the Theology and Religious Studies Core are:
- To consider reflectively your relationship to the world, your fellow humans, and God.
- To foster a critically appreciative awareness of the religious dimension of human existence.
- To assist you in reflecting upon your own experience and understanding in that enlarged context.
- To develop your critical awareness by applying it to a particular area of interest in religion or theology.
Problem of God1 (THEO 1000) and one Theology and Religious Studies elective fulfill the Theology and Religious Studies requirement. Introduction to Biblical Literature (THEO 1100) may be substituted for Problem of God or may be used as an intermediate level elective.
Writing – 2 Courses
The writing requirement provides students with opportunities to connect their writing with critical reading and thinking, inquiry, and analysis. The Writing and Culture Seminar, WRIT 1150, approaches writing through three interrelated frameworks: writing as a tool for inquiry, writing as a process, and practice writing in different rhetorical situations. Each section focuses on a cultural theme, with readings and assignments that engage students with compelling questions and problems. Seminar readings provide texts for analysis as well as models and motives for student writing. Students are encouraged to complete this course during their first year at Georgetown. The learning goals shared by different sections in the Writing and Culture Seminar are:
- Experiment with diverse strategies for planning, drafting, and revising writing.
- Adapt writing to respond to, engage, and persuade audiences.
- Employ rhetorical strategies for analyzing, designing, and communicating in writing and other forms of media.
- Engage in writing as a form of thinking, inquiry, and learning.
The second half of the Writing Core is an intensive writing experience located within the student’s chosen major, embedded within the requirements as determined by that program. Each major’s Integrated Writing requirement is established by the department or program in order to express the unique conventions and practices of the discipline. The learning goals shared by courses in the Integrated Writing Core are:
- To prepare students to use the relevant forms, styles, and conventions of writing within their chosen major(s).
- To employ writing as a method to enhance students’ learning of concepts, materials, and methods in their major.
Courses fulfilling this requirement are identified within each major.
Humanities: Art, Literature, Music, and Media (HALM) – 1 Course
(Formerly Humanities: Art, Literature and Culture (HALC))
The Humanities: Art, Literature, Music, and Media (HALM) requirement serves to deepen students’ understanding and experience of a range of creative media representing cultural expressions from various historical periods and world regions, from the local to the global.
Through reading, listening, viewing, analyzing, writing, and/or creative practice, students acquire the intellectual and practical tools to interpret human experiences portrayed in the arts, literature, music, and media.
HALM Learning Goals:
-
Understand how art, literature, music and/or media have historically shaped and been shaped by cultures.
-
Develop generative habits of mind and exercise critical thinking skills for a world in flux: openness, resilience, curiosity, creativity, imagination.
-
Activate knowledge through creative, analytical, and/or critical approaches in individual, collaborative, and/or public-facing projects.
HALM courses must be Georgetown University courses and cannot be fulfilled by transfer credits; they must be 3-credit courses. Courses that can fulfill other Core requirements (such as HIST, PHIL, THEO) are ineligible.
In 2026-27, the older “HALC” designation (Humanities: Arts, Literature, and Culture) will be replaced with HALM (Humanities: Arts, Literature, Music and Media). For this academic year, courses with the designation will be tagged with both HALC and HALM. In Fall 2027, the tag HALC will be retired in favor of HALM.
Science For All – 1 Course
The natural sciences, and the technologies that they enable, are woven deeply into the fabric of our lives and are central to many of the important political and social challenges that we face. They are also pinnacles of intellectual accomplishment in humanity’s ancient and ongoing quest to understand the world in which we live. Thus we believe that to function as liberally educated, ethically responsible citizens, as stewards of the planet, and as effective leaders, all Georgetown students should understand scientific modes of thought and concepts, both in the abstract and as they are exemplified in at least one major area of scientific inquiry. The Science For All (SFA) Core requirement is grounded in these beliefs. The learning goals shared by courses in the Science for All Core are:
- To understand the basic principles and some current research challenges of one or more areas of science.
- To understand science as a set of methods of inquiry that involve forming and testing hypotheses through the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data.
- To consume and interpret scientific information with critical understanding of the balance of certainty and uncertainty that research findings inevitably reflect.
Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy – 1 Course
This requirement applies only to students in the class of 2028 and later.
The Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy (QRDL) requirement will help students learn to understand how real-world interpretation of data progresses from a set of numbers, frequently incomplete and with measurement errors, to a visual distillation that clearly conveys meaning. While mathematics and statistics provide a necessary foundation for quantitative reasoning and data literacy, the power of pure mathematics lies in its abstraction. In contrast, QRDL emphasizes a distinctive variety of concrete contexts and applications. The learning goals shared by courses in the Quantitative Reasoning and Data Literacy Core are:
- To build a quantitative toolbox that allows students to become comfortable performing and/or evaluating quantitative analyses.
- To translate and make meaning of data and quantitative analyses as they apply to complex problems.
- To effectively communicate statistical methods and results both visually and textually to a diversity of audiences with considerations to contextual, social, or ethical issues.
Engaging Diversity/Pathways to Social Justice
For students in the class of 2025, 2026, or 2027
Engaging Diversity (2 courses)
All Georgetown students are required to take two Engaging Diversity courses as overlays, meaning that the courses may count toward another degree requirement (Core, major, or minor). One of these courses must be labeled with a “Core: Diversity Domestic” attribute and one must be labeled with a “Core: Diversity Global” attribute.
In courses designated as fulfilling a diversity requirement, students will engage with different cultures, beliefs, and ideas. These courses will explore conditions that contribute to unequal access and influence. Finally, these courses should enable students to reflect on their own identities as they also deepen their understanding of the experience of others. The learning goals shared by courses in the Engaging Diversity Core are:
- To prepare students to be responsible, reflective, self-aware and respectful global citizens through recognizing the plurality of human experience and engaging with different cultures, beliefs, and ideas.
- To be better able to appreciate and reflect upon how human diversity and human identities shape our experience and understanding of the world.
For students in the class of 2028 and later
Pathways to Social Justice (3 courses)
Georgetown’s Pathways to Social Justice (PSJ) curriculum prepares students to critically analyze historical and contemporary power differentials. By fulfilling the Pathways to Social Justice requirement, students will gain a better understanding of how social, political, geographic, economic, and other cultural factors shape experiences of the world, as well as how these factors contribute to marginalization and inequality. PSJ courses will also explore how communities have resisted marginalization, and will focus on axes of identity that have formed the basis for historical and contemporary marginalization and oppression, including race, gender, class, caste, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
A cornerstone of this requirement is the one-credit University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice which is designed to ensure that every student at Georgetown develops a baseline vocabulary for discussing racial difference and marginalization. This seminar will provide the foundation for each student’s engagement with other PSJ-attributed “overlay” courses offered across Georgetown’s Main Campus and should be taken in the first year.
In addition to the required one-credit University Seminar in Race, Power, and Justice, the requirement also requires students to take two overlay courses (meaning that these courses may count toward another degree requirement, whether core, major, or minor). Eligible courses have the “Core: PSJ” attribute.
Each course in the Pathways to Social Justice Core works toward at least three of these shared priorities:
- Inclusive Scholarship
- Intersectional Approaches to Identity
- Historical Legacies of Inequality and Their Contemporary Impacts
- National, Regional, and Global Comparisons
- Imagining Justice
