BRATTLEBORO — People walking on Main Street in Brattleboro are often unaware of the instructors and student nurses at work just above them in the Brooks House, who represent only a part of the over 400 faculty, staff, and students who make up the Vermont Technical College's Nursing Program.
Brattleboro, along with Springfield, Vt., and Keene, N.H., represents the VTC's Southeast Region Campus, one of five regional campuses with nine different locations across the entire state of Vermont.
Vermont Tech offers a one-year Licensed Practical Nursing Certificate, a two-year Associates Degree in Nursing, plus an online Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree.
In a news release, Becky Steele, Vermont Tech's site director for the southeast region, noted that “most of our students are nontraditional, meaning they are adult learners, often with families, children, or may be single parents. Adult learners can't live in residence halls as the Randolph Center students do, so we have to find a way to bring their education to them.”
Whether it is a nursing student in Southern Vermont, Western Massachusetts or the Monadnock region of New Hampshire, nursing education is brought to students through lectures, clinical rotations, and instructors who teach via interactive television.
The Vermont Tech nursing program graduates have some of the highest pass rates for their boards in the nation, and each year the program graduates approximately 130 future RNs and soon-to-be LPNs. There is also an online BSN program.
VTDigger recently reported that “More than 3,900 nursing-related job vacancies are expected in Vermont between now and spring of 2020.”