Pittsboro, NC – A 68-year-old woman with pneumonia checks into the hospital short of breath, the skin around her lips tinged blue.
That’s a scenario the Associate Degree Nursing students at Central Carolina Community College’s Chatham Health Sciences Center recently studied to figure out what her nurse should do next.
Caring and critical thinking are key parts of a nurse’s role, and of what CCCC teaches and upholds in a program with one of the best registered nurse licensure pass rates in the state.
“One has to stay in grace,” said CCCC Nursing Faculty Marc Alvarez. “It is also important to be a problem solver.”
CCCC’s nursing program expanded this academic year to the Chatham Health Sciences Center in northern Chatham County near Chapel Hill. The expansion, backed by a grant from North Carolina’s community college system, seeks to fulfill regional demand for nurses — a proactive approach to a pressing need.
“There’s always a job for a nurse,” said CCCC Nursing Faculty Shari Stickels.
Associate Degree Nursing is now offered at the Chatham Health Sciences Center in addition to the Lee Main Campus in Sanford. The Practical Nursing Diploma continues to be offered at the Harnett Health Sciences Center in Lillington.
Barbara Campbell, chair of CCCC’s nursing department, explained Associate Degree Nursing graduates take the National Council Licensure Examination, which gives them their RN licensure upon passage.
In 2025 results released thus far, 100% of CCCC’s Associate Degree Nursing graduates passed on their first try.
CCCC was one of just three colleges or universities in the state listed with a 100% pass rate three years in a row for the years 2021, 2022, and 2023, respectively, in a comparison published by the state board of nursing.
With licenses in hand, CCCC’s Associate Degree Nursing graduates are sought after for entry-level RN positions. The program had a job placement rate of 98% percent or more in the last three years, according to Campbell.
For Ashley Williams, a nursing student at the Chatham Health Sciences Center and mother of four children, studying to become a nurse has been a dream deferred.
“I was afraid of failing, a little bit,” she said. “And I don’t think I’m as afraid of that now.”
Years ago, at another college, Williams started as a nursing major but got intimidated and switched to nutrition for her degree.
There seemed to be a culture there of trying to scare the students coming in, to weed the field, she said. At CCCC, she said, she has found the opposite.
That’s also been the experience of Lacy Jarman, one of the youngest students in the class.
“Everyone is here to help you, and they are always available to answer any questions, and they want you to succeed,” Jarman said.
Jarman graduated from high school in Chatham County in 2024 and spent a year at CCCC completing prerequisite classes needed to join the program before starting as a first-year nursing student with Williams and her classmate this fall.
During a typical week in their first semester, Jarman, Williams and their fellow students had one day of class and one day of hands-on skills practice at the Chatham Health Science Center, as well as a day of clinical learning in diverse real-life healthcare settings in the community.
Once or twice a semester, nursing students participate in a simulation exercise at CCCC’s state-of-the-art, university-comparable simulation center, located on the Lee Main Campus.
It is a safe space, CCCC Nursing Faculty Liz Lux said, for students to demonstrate their critical thinking and hands-on nursing skills, before they practice on a patient.
In class, Alvarez walked the students through examining additional evidence presented with the pneumonia case study, identifying key issues at hand, deciding what additional assessments they should do, and thinking about how they, as nurses, could help the patient.
“Raise the head of the bed,” suggested one student.
“Yes — positioning the client supports oxygenation,” Alvarez said. “Very good, what else.”
Nurses, he explained, have a variety of ways they can help patients: from direct actions they can take themselves, to interventions they do in collaboration with, or request from, other medical professionals. Some other possible interventions in this case could include oxygen therapy, chest percussion, and postural drainage.
Alvarez then asked the students to consider what interventions they might use later, if the client significantly improves. One student suggested having the client get up and move around.
That’s a good idea, with certain precautions taken, Alvarez said, but may not be the client’s natural preference.
“Try to encourage them without violating their autonomy,” he told the students. “Try to be encouraging to them.”
Williams, who also works in an ICU as a nurse’s aide, said that, in class, she enjoys being able to bring up examples of what she and the nurses are seeing in that workplace and ask her instructors about those scenarios.
“They’re really good about saying, ‘Okay, well, hmm, here’s what I would do,’” she said. “Which is what it’s all about.”