Welcome to the American University of Kurdistan (AUK) College of Nursing!
The establishment of the College of Nursing has opened the door for aspiring nurses in the region to pursue high-quality undergraduate nursing education through American-style curricula, instruction, and training.
At AUK, our dedicated faculty and staff are committed to your success. You will be engaged in innovative instructional methods grounded in evidence-based knowledge and immersed in rigorous clinical training.
The educational journey toward becoming a registered nurse can be challenging. However, the opportunity to join a dynamic, diverse, and highly trusted profession makes the path worthwhile.
Jervy P. Bernardino, PhD, MSN, BSN, RN
Dean, College of Nursing
According to the Duhok Directorate General of Health, the Governorate of Duhok faces a critical shortage of nurses. Currently, there are only 11 nurses per 10,000 people, far below the global standard of 29.2 nurses per 10,000. With only 2,368 nurses serving the province, an additional 3,914 nurses are needed to reach international benchmarks, a gap projected to widen by 2030. This shortage is not unique to Duhok; it reflects a broader challenge across the Kurdistan Region and Iraq. Despite the high demand for nurses, social stigma continues to limit the growth of the profession.
To address this pressing need and advance nursing education across the Kurdistan Region and beyond, the American University of Kurdistan (AUK) established the College of Nursing (CoN) and launched its Baccalaureate Nursing Program.
Since its founding in 2014, AUK has been committed to shaping future leaders through high-quality education, innovative research, and career-ready academic programs. As a leading academic and research institution, AUK upholds the highest standards of intellectual integrity and scholarship. The University values academic freedom, equal opportunity, and unity in diversity, principles reflected in the excellence of its faculty and staff.
In alignment with its mission to reform education and healthcare in the region, AUK’s Board of Trustees approved the establishment of the College of Nursing in accordance with international quality assurance standards. Alongside the College of Medicine, AUK is planning to build a teaching hospital and additional facilities to support nursing education, faculty development, and student training.
The College of Nursing prepares students for meaningful careers and lifelong professional development in the field of nursing. The profession is rooted in the prevention of illness, compassionate care for those who are acutely ill, and support for individuals with long-term health needs. Guided by its mission to serve the local and regional community, the College of Nursing aims to meet the healthcare workforce needs of the Kurdistan Region and beyond by graduating highly skilled and practice-ready nursing professionals. Training at AUK follows the highest standards of interdisciplinary nursing education modeled after leading U.S. universities.
MISSION
The College of Nursing's mission is consistent with the American University of Kurdistan (AUK) mission, which is to support values-based liberal arts and professional education for all students in achieving their educational goals in an academic and scholarly excellence environment. The AUK College of Nursing is to prepare caring, innovative, professional nurses who are leaders in addressing the region's healthcare needs and improving local, national, and global communities’ health and wellness.
VISION
The vision of the College of Nursing is committed to providing quality nursing education and scholarly training so that students become compassionate, highly academically qualified nurses, educators, leaders, and scholars of a diverse, sustainable, global society.
CORE VALUES
Core Values are the beliefs that describe, define, and direct the work of the College of Nursing through the University and its operations. Inspired by the Core Values of the University, the College of Nursing has discovered its Core Values that provide a fundamental set of guiding principles to promote excellence in nursing education, research, practice, and service.
- Caring: Caring encompasses the interest, concern, compassion, and mentoring we demonstrate for our students, our patients, our communities, and each other. Caring is central to nursing practice.
- Diversity: Diversity is fostering the potential of every individual through sensitivity, social justice, and cultural competence.
- Excellence: Excellence is supporting the highest quality in an environment of collaboration, shared knowledge, innovation, scholarship, leadership, and competence.
- Integrity: Integrity is acting with honesty, fairness, and sincerity in all endeavors in an ethical and professional manner.
- Nursing Innovation: Nursing innovation is the conversion of knowledge and ideas into meaningful work through creativity, entrepreneurship, and pushing beyond the boundaries of the current situation.
- Scholarship: Scholarship is to discover and disseminate new knowledge and using nursing scholarship to practice evidence-based care. As a practice profession and an academic discipline, nursing is an art and science.
- Service: Service is to commit to the people of the Kurdistan region and beyond by providing high-quality nursing programs to promote the health of all people. We provide nursing expertise and service at the University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq, and international levels.
- Respect: Respect is acknowledging the value of ourselves and others by treating them with dignity, responsiveness, courtesy, and consideration.
PROGRAM EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES (PEOS)
The BSN program’s educational objectives are to prepare baccalaureate generalist nurses. Therefore, the AUK College of Nursing expects the BSN graduates within a few years of graduation to attain the following:
- Demonstrate competence in a professional role within a dynamic, multicultural, global society to provide safe, quality, holistic, evidence-based, patient-centered care to diverse patient populations across the lifespan as baccalaureate generalist nurses.
- Assimilate professional, legal, and ethical guidelines in practice as a professional nurse with accountability and independence in a variety of settings.
- Demonstrate commitment to lifelong learning for personal and professional growth for further education and/orspecialization within their chosen career path.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (SLOS)
At the completion of the program, graduates are expected to demonstrate:
- Patient-Centered Care. Demonstrate competent and responsible practice by synthesizing and integrating knowledge from the arts, humanities, sciences, and nursing education to provide patient-centered, holistic, compassionate, and respectful care to patient populations, families, and communities that are age and culturally appropriate
- Evidence-Based Practice (EBP). Utilize scholarship to evaluate and integrate current evidence with clinical expertise and consider clients’ preferences, experiences, and values to make practice decisions for quality outcomes.
- Safety. Apply clinical reasoning and critical thinking to promote a culture of safety and prevent the risk of harm to populations, families, colleagues, and the community.
- Communication. Demonstrate effective communication with patients, families, and colleagues by fostering mutual respect and shared decision-making to enhance knowledge, experience, and health outcome.
- Systems-Based Practice. Recognize the changing healthcare system and demonstrate the ability to access resources in a safe, effective, and financially responsible manner to provide value-based care.
- Leadership. Demonstrate leadership through accountability, influence, and collaboration with others in a way that will facilitate the establishment and achievement of shared goals.
- Quality Improvement. Recognize a commitment to quality improvement by understanding the value of data, design, implementation, and evaluation strategies to improve the healthcare system’s quality and safety.
- Intra- and Interprofessional Collaboration. Demonstrate active participation and collaboration within nursing and inter-professional teams to achieve quality patient outcomes.
- Professionalism. Demonstrate professionalism through consistent application and self-reflection of ethical, legal, altruistic, humanistic, regulatory principles, and self-care.
- Information Technology. Demonstrate proficiency in using technology and information systems to communicate, manage knowledge, mitigate error, and support decision-making for safe practice.
PHILOSOPHIC APPROACH
The philosophic approach to the BSN curriculum of the College of Nursing is the Quality and Safety Education for Nurses (QSEN) competencies and the National League for Nursing (NLN) Education Competencies Model. The QSEN competencies serve as a foundation for enhancing nursing knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSAs) in the context of a quality and safety-driven healthcare environment. These six core competencies: patient-centered care, teamwork and collaboration, evidence-based practice, quality improvement, safety, and informatics, reflect the essential capabilities nurses must possess to meet the evolving demands of modern healthcare systems. When mastered within the educational setting, students will be able to identify the KSAs outlined under each competency, integrate these competencies into their daily practice after graduation, and be better prepared to provide safe, high-quality care.
The NLN Education Competencies Model incorporates core values and integrating concepts, culminating in a graduate who demonstrates four essential outcomes embedded in nursing practice: human flourishing, nursing judgment, professional identity, and a spirit of inquiry. Both the QSEN competencies and the NLN Education Competencies Model are progressively integrated throughout the BSN curriculum, advancing from simple to complex concepts.
The goal of the BSN program is to prepare baccalaureate-prepared nurses to practice as generalist nurses in a variety of healthcare settings. Graduates of the AUK College of Nursing are competent nurse generalists who serve as providers of care, designers, managers, and coordinators of care, and active members of the nursing profession. Generalist nursing practice encompasses both direct and indirect care for individuals, families, groups, communities, and populations across the lifespan and throughout the continuum of healthcare environments.
Baccalaureate-prepared nurses from the AUK College of Nursing provide patient-centered care that recognizes, respects, and responds to patients’ differences, values, preferences, and expressed needs. As healthcare providers, they function both autonomously and collaboratively within interdisciplinary teams. These graduates understand the complexity of care delivery and the increased utilization of healthcare resources required in today’s healthcare systems. They are equipped with the knowledge and authority to delegate tasks to other healthcare personnel, as well as to supervise and evaluate their performance.
As knowledge workers, AUK nursing graduates demonstrate strong critical reasoning, clinical judgment, communication, and assessment skills. They uphold a professional image grounded in a clearly defined professional identity, accountability, and a strong ethical framework. They serve as advocates for both patients and the nursing profession, actively engaging in policy processes that influence healthcare delivery and systems of care. A commitment to lifelong learning is a hallmark of the AUK baccalaureate nurse, ensuring continuous self-improvement and professional growth.
Core Values are the beliefs that describe, define, and direct the work of the College of Nursing through the University and its operations. Inspired by the Core Values of the University, the College of Nursing has discovered its Core Values that provide a fundamental set of guiding principles to promote excellence in nursing education, research, practice, and service.
- Context and Environment
- Knowledge and Science
- Personal and Professional Development
- Quality and Safety
- Relationship-centered care
- Teamwork
- Human Flourishing
- Nursing Judgement
- Professional Identity
- Spirit of Inquiry
- Patient-centered care
- Teamwork and Collaboration
- Evidence-based practice
- Quality Improvement
- Informatics
- Safety
Integrating Concepts
Outcomes
AUK College of Nursing BSN End-of-Program Student Learning Outcomes Core Concepts based on the Quality and Safety Education in Nursing (QSEN) Competencies:
