The Board of Trustees voted at their Feb. 9 meeting to approve an online Doctorate in Nursing Practice program to start next fall.

The program will be the fourth entirely online DNP program in the country, according to Ellen Dawson, the chair of the department of nursing.

Trustee Lydia Thomas said similar programs across the country are already over-subscribed, and that GW’s program will help to remedy a shortage in nurses.

“As you know, the nation is facing a nursing crisis, and it’s only going to get worse,” she said.

The Board also reported that GW’s cancer institute, now in its fourth year, is continuing to reach out to minority populations in the District. The institute has tested 333 men by speaking to women about prostate cancer and encouraging them to tell their husbands to get tested, said trustee Alan From.

“The services that we provide really do save lives,” From said. “We certainly owe this to the District of Columbia.”

The Virginia Campus is still working to recover from a 2004 embezzlement incident and will be increasing staff at the campus to 400, said trustee Mark Hughes.

Hughes said the school needs to be able to serve students from the area. “We have a commitment to improving the quality of life in that region,” he said.

As part of a strategic plan the trustees will be studying five to 10 universities also with remote campuses. Hughes said they will be scheduling a meeting with President-elect Steven Knapp to talk about John’s Hopkins’s six remote campuses, which include campuses in China and Italy.

Also the Board of Trustees granted Knapp tenure in the English department as a professor of English at their winter meeting. While a vote was unnecessary according to procedures, University President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg proposed a vote.

“I think it would be optically splendid if the Board could vote on the tenure,” he said.