In the ongoing pandemic of the novel coronavirus, America is facing a nursing shortage that is higher now than it has ever seen before. As cases rise, more nurses suffer from burnout and have a strong desire to leave the profession they once loved.  The chronic shortage of nurses that we have faced has quickly become a crisis. 

However, a strategy to resolve such a crisis is to encourage more careers in nursing.  Providing students with quality programs and investing in their growth as good nurses is essential to relieve the stress of nurses already in the field while also reducing the stress of the new oncoming nurses after graduation. It follows then, that a growing population of skilled nurses at the bedside is ideal.

The WellStar School of Nursing (WSON) at Kennesaw State University (KSU) provides a quality nursing program but is failing to invest in its current students.  The WSON requires its students to do clinical rotations as part of the program, and failure to complete clinical results in the subsequent failure of the course and delayed progression within the program.  Though KSU nor the WSON mandates a COVID vaccine, most of the clinical sites partnered with the school mandate vaccination evidence by October 1, 2021.  Failure to provide vaccination evidence ultimately results in failure from the program.

Students who have chosen to not receive the vaccine for various religious or medical reasons have been denied any accommodations by the school and have yet to receive any guidance for exemptions upon request.  This is putting a huge burden on us students of stress and fear of not being able to graduate for not being able to participate in the required clinical settings for our degree.

We demand the following accommodations to be given:

1. If clinical rotations are required by the WSON, they must allow comparable choices for unvaccinated students to do clinical with comparable organizations that do not 'require' vaccines
2. Alternate clinical assignments are provided if any given site is unavailable