Kenosha’s Carthage College has hired Frank Hicks as its founding director of nursing, the first step toward the creation of a bachelor of science in nursing program.
He will coordinate the process to meet all educational, regulatory and accreditation requirements. If the Wisconsin Nursing Board approves the new program in October, Carthage would admit the first students for the autumn 2015 term.
“Dr. Hicks’ interest in Carthage says a lot about our college,” Carthage President Gregory Woodward said. “There is only one thing Dr. Hicks is interested in creating: an elite nursing program that will be the envy of everyone else in this field. I am elated to say, ‘Let’s go!’”
For the past 12 years, Hicks has held faculty and administrative positions at Rush University College of Nursing in Chicago, where, as assistant dean for academic affairs, he developed a generalist entry master’s program, which caters to students with bachelor’s degrees in other subjects. He also worked as a teacher-practitioner in the surgical intensive care unit and as a clinical nurse specialist in the cardiac transplant program. He taught at Loyola University Chicago as well.
Carthage began investigating the feasibility of a nursing program last September.