· History 

· Vision, Mission, and Goals 

· Accreditation 

· Licensure 

· Legal Information 

About Walden University

Walden University is an accredited institution that for more than 45 years has provided an engaging learning experience for working professionals. Our mission of producing scholar-practitioners has attracted a community of extraordinary students and faculty, all sharing a common desire to make a positive social impact—to make a difference.

Highlights of Walden’s commitment include:

· Diverse and comprehensive core curriculum: Walden University provides students the intellectual foundation necessary to see the interrelationships among the central ideas and means of expression that are specific to the disciplines. This foundation supplies a context for knowledge and makes possible the cross-fertilization of ideas to enhance creativity, innovation, and problem-solving.

· Student-centeredness: Our faculty and staff are devoted to helping students balance their education with their personal and professional lives. Walden’s library, tutoring, and other student services also provide essential resources.

· Real-world application: Degree programs are developed by scholar-practitioners who continually assess courses to make sure they are current and relevant.

· International perspectives: Walden University is part of the Laureate International Universities global network of more than 80 accredited campus-based and online universities in 28 countries, serving more than 1,000,000 students around the world. Students in the Laureate International Universities network have an unprecedented opportunity to expand their international outlook and gain insights that they can apply directly to their professions.

· Positive social change: We believe that knowledge is most valuable when put to use for the greater good. Students, alumni, and faculty are committed to improving the human and social condition by creating and applying ideas to promote the development of individuals, communities, and organizations, as well as society as a whole.

· Scholar-practitioner model: Our goal is to help students become scholar-practitioners by challenging them to integrate scholarly research with their own expertise as skilled practitioners in their fields.

Return to: Introduction 

Vision

Walden University envisions a distinctively different 21st-century learning community where knowledge is judged worthy to the degree that it can be applied by its graduates to the immediate solutions of critical societal challenges, thereby advancing the greater global good.

Mission

Walden University provides a diverse community of career professionals with the opportunity to transform themselves as scholar-practitioners so that they can effect positive social change.

Goals

· To provide multicontextual educational opportunities for career learners.

· To provide innovative, learner-centered educational programs that recognize and incorporate the knowledge, skills, and abilities students bring into their academic programs.

· To provide its programs through diverse process-learning approaches, all resulting in outcomes of quality and integrity.

· To provide an inquiry/action model of education that fosters research, discovery, and critical thinking and that results in professional excellence.

· To produce graduates who are scholarly, reflective practitioners and agents of positive social change.

Social Change

Walden University defines positive social change as a deliberate process of creating and applying ideas, strategies, and actions to promote the worth, dignity, and development of individuals, communities, organizations, institutions, cultures, and societies. Positive social change results in the improvement of human and social conditions.

This definition of positive social change provides an intellectually comprehensive and socially constructive foundation for the programs, research, professional activities, and products created by the Walden academic community.

In addition, Walden supports positive social change through the development of principled, knowledgeable, and ethical scholar-practitioners, who are and will become civic and professional role models by advancing the betterment of society.

University Outcomes

Walden University strives to produce graduates with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to:

1. Facilitate positive social change where they work, in their communities, and in society.

2. Use their knowledge to positively impact their profession, communities, and society.

3. Demonstrate a commitment to lifelong learning.

4. Apply their learning to specific problems and challenges in their workplace and professional settings.

5. Demonstrate information literacy.* *Information literacy is defined as the ability to know when there is a need for information, and being able to identify, locate, evaluate, and effectively use that information for the issue or problem at hand.

6. Demonstrate an understanding of the methods of inquiry used in their professional or academic field.

7. Practice legal and ethical integrity in their professional work.

8. Effectively communicate their ideas and the rationale behind them to others.

9. Support diversity and multiculturalism within their profession, communities, and society.

University Values

Quality • Integrity • Student-Centeredness

Values

Three values—quality, integrity, and student-centeredness—are the core of the university and the touchstones for action at all levels of the organization. They demand high standards of excellence, uncompromising openness and honesty, and primary attention to the progress of our students. These values and principles give Walden University its unique identity and underpin the Walden University mission.

Quality

· Walden University believes that quality and integrity are the cornerstones of all academic processes.

· Walden University believes in innovation and flexibility in the conception and delivery of its educational programs, and that there are many different academic routes to achieve quality and integrity.

Integrity

MSN Learning Outcomes

At the end of this program, students will be able to:

1. Synthesize organizational/systems leadership for cost-effective specialist nursing practice that contributes to high-quality healthcare delivery, advancement of the nursing profession, and social change.

2. Critique evidence-based literature drawing from diverse theoretical perspectives and pertinent research to guide decision making that demonstrates best practices for specialist nursing practice in a global society.

3. Integratively assess, diagnose, plan, implement, and evaluate cost-effective healthcare strategies that reduce health disparities by patient/population advocacy for access to specialist nursing care.

4. Demonstrate ability to effectively communicate using audience-specific oral, written, and information technology for professional delivery of specialist nursing care.

5. Evaluate health needs of diverse populations for necessary teaching/coaching functions based on specialist nursing knowledge to restore/promote health and prevent illness/injury.

6. Exhibit ongoing commitment to professional development and value of nursing theories/ethical principles (altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, social justice) in accordance with ethically responsible, legally accountable, specialist nursing practice.

7. Implement specialist nursing roles to promote quality improvement of patient-centered care in accordance with professional practice standards that transform health outcomes for diverse populations.