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Alyssa Smith
Mrs. Laura Wilson
Public Discourse
2 December 2013
Creating a Continuous Ladder
Hondros College can be looked at as a re-born company. The company first
started as a real estate preparatory school in 1981 and slowly expanded to what it is
today. In 2006 Hondros College was given approval from the Ohio Board of Nursing
to offer Practical Nursing Diploma and Associate Degree of Nursing. The Cincinnati
campus was the first campus to start the two programs and was followed by the
remaining campuses; Westerville, Fairborn and Independence.
A brief five years after the start of the nursing program Hondros College
launched the RN-BSN Completion program. The three programs allowed the college
to have a ladder approach to the nursing profession. One of the easiest ways to
explain how the program works, along with a great marketing tool, is to visualize
the three programs as a ladder. Just like a ladder you must complete the first step,
or program, to move on to the second step and then so on and so forth. With having
a program having breaks, or steps, it gives a student the ability to stop or take a
break after completion of each program. The program also allows the student to
become licensed in the program they complete so that they may work as a Licensed
Practical Nurse or Register Nurse while going on to the next program.
The newest change for Hondros College began the end of 2013 when
American Public Education, Inc. (APEI) acquired it for 100% ownership. The change

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in ownership is an opportunity for growth for APEI and supports the mission for
Hondros College. The mission statement for Hondros College is, to provide
education through the baccalaureate level to a diverse and motivated population of
students through traditional and non-traditional delivery methods. We will do this
through providing high-quality education that is immediately applicable to our
students career goals and the communities in which they serve, by faculty who have
relevant and demonstrated experience (Hondros College Student Catalog 6).
Hondros College was created to help the current needs of Ohioans within the job
field. When Hondros College began to offer nursing it was helping the job projection
for the nursing field. Before you can become a nurse you must go to school and have
the proper education and training. Hondros College continues to support the
students and communities in their needs.
Discourse Community
Before we go in depth about Hondros College being a discourse community
we must first understand what a discourse community is. A discourse community is
a group of people that share the same interest and/or goal that work together
within the interest and/or goal. Working within a discourse community allows
different people to work together with a common interest. By working together you
must have a common language and outlet to communicate with each other. Every
discourse community works together in its own way along with having different
levels of functioning.
Similar to most discourse communities Hondros College is ever evolving in
how it functions. When Hondros College first began the nursing program it only had

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one campus that was separate from the corporate office. The communication
between the Cincinnati campus and the corporate office was not difficult because
the campus was already established with the business side of Hondros and the
nursing program only began as a small program. The main source of
communication within the company was by telephone and email.
One goal Hondros College strives for is to stay a tight knit family.
Communication within the college is warm, inviting and personal. The experience at
Hondros College is like one of a family rather than only a building of education. The
admissions team interview every student in person before they are admitted into
the program and they meet with their campus student service coordinator to help
them in the process of gathering all of the necessary admissions documents along
with medical documents and financial aid. Every admitted student is contacted by
the student service coordinator on a weekly basis to help them complete the
documents they need to start the program.
When starting the program every student is required to take an introductory
to college course to show them how the college works and to help them be
successful within the program. In the introductory to college class they learn how to
use the student portal, how to contact their teachers and learn to have an open
communication because the college is there to support the students in any way that
they can.
The connection between the staff and the teachers are the students.
Everyone in the college wants every single student to succeed and to be successful
within the program and when they are finished with the program. The goal and

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mission of the college is to provide high quality education by those who have
demonstrated experience in the field that they teach. The link between the students
and the teachers goes beyond information but it is their first connection into their
new path as a nurse.
The college works as one machine starting from marketing students to start
the program, to admitting them into the program, to educating them within the field
of nursing, to enabling them to graduate with their degree, to help place them in a
job in the field of nursing. In order to have the college properly function everyone
must be aware of the goals of the college and work toward the same goal. Every
person in the college together form what the college is. The staff and teachers of the
college form a discourse community that has a goal/mission to educate students
within the community toward a nursing career.
Communication
Most business will create an H: drive for the company to use to store and be
able to share policies, documents and other sources of information. The H: drive for
Hondros College was shared between core (business side) and nursing. On the
nursing side of the H: drive files were created for each section of the college
including: Admissions, Business Office, Financial Aid, Marketing and many others.
According to Dave Kramer, Campus Director of the Cincinnati campus for Hondros
College, the H: drive for Hondros College was recently separated into an H: drive for
the nursing program and a separate H: drive for the core side of the company.
Kramer explained that splitting the H: drive for the nursing side of the company was
necessary and long overdue. The new nursing H: drive now only hosts nursing

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information and now include financial information. Having a H: drive is very
important and useful because of the multiple campuses Hondros College houses.
Decisions and information is stored on the H: drive to allow each campus to have
access to the exact same information and documents. By having common
information and documents Hondros College is able to be creditable and equal
among the four campuses. Other than storing documents the H: drive allows
campuses to share confidential documents between employees on the same campus
and to the other campuses. An example of using the H: drive is being able to store
college transcripts from the students and sending the hyperlink to the registrar on
the Westerville campus to evaluate. Documents such as transcripts are items that
are not allowed to be emailed and must be kept confidential. By using the H: drive it
saves time and reliability of a fax machine or snail mail.
A very important tool that is needed when in college is a laptop. According to
the Hondros College Student Handbook the college requires every student to have a
laptop with certain capabilities to include: operating system with XP or newer,
wireless card. The laptop must also have browser capabilities to include: Internet
Explorer 7 or newer, cookies enabled, disabled pop up blocker and flash player plugin. Additional requirements for the laptop include items such as Microsoft office,
adobe reader and a virus protector. The requirements are set to make the students
at an equal level and so that all students have the tools to be successful within the
program(s).
To ensure that all students meet the laptop requirements all external PN and
ADN students receive a laptop package that is added on to their tuition. The laptop

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policy ensures that all students are consistent. Before the laptop policy was in effect
students were told to have a laptop but not all students complied. The laptops the
students would purchase would be across the spectrum and there were many
problems with the students accessing the documents they had to use for their
classes.
One major component of the program is standardized testing. In order to
exit the program a student must complete and pass the standardized testing. The
testing Hondros College uses for the Practical Nursing program is the HESI test. The
HESI test is taking as a practice test during the third term, studied the fourth term
and then tested in the forth term of the Practical Nursing program. In order to take
a practice HESI test and to take the actual test you must do so on a computer with
certain capabilities. The laptops in the laptop package are capable to open and
successfully run the HESI test so that the student may take the tests on campus.
Before the laptops were a part of the policy students David Kramer remembers the
students from the Cincinnati campus and Fairborn campus having to travel to
Fairborn to a testing center. Forcing the students to a different location changed the
routine of the students and also required the students to arrange travel to the
location.
Projection
Hondros College has never stood still since it began working as a college. The
main focus of Hondros College is the students and people in the community. The
college is constantly changing to perfect the system it currently has and to expand
itself to a bigger college. David Kramer was stumbled when asked if technology will

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change within the future years but eventually replied that as technology changes the
technology used within the college will change with it. With each new invention of
technology it has helped employees and students to either help the college grow or
help a student learn. When new devices are created students will use them as study
tools and teachers will be able to use them as learning tools. Technology will also
help the administration of the college to perfect daily tasks along with making tasks
shorter to complete. It is hard to project exactly how technology will be like in the
future because most people do not create technology but utilize it after it is created.

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Timeline
1981-The Ohio Real Estate Preparatory School was founded by John G. Hondros
1986-The Ohio Real Estate Preparatory School name was changed to Hondros
Career Center
1996-The Hondros Career Center name was changed to Hondros College
2006-Hondros College received approval form the Ohio Board of Nursing to offer
Practical Nursing Diploma and Associate Degree of Nursing
2007-In January the Cincinnati campus began the first nursing programs of Hondros
College
2008-The Westerville campus began offering the two nursing programs
2009-The Fairborn campus began offering the two nursing programs
2011-The Independence campus began offering the two nursing programs
2011-In October the RN-BSN Completion program was offered
2013-In May the RN-BSN Completion program became accredited by the
Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education
2013- In the forth quarter of the year Hondros College was acquired by American
Public Education, Inc.

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Works Cited
Hondros College Student Catalog. Westerville, OH: Hondros College, 2013. Print.
Kramer, David. In-person Interview. 19 Nov. 2013.