The United States nursing workforce faces a health care challenge for providing culturally competent care to the growing number of racial and ethnic minority groups. According to Gertner et al (2010), cultural competency in health care is defined as providing care to patients with diverse backgrounds to meet the social, cultural and linguistic needs. Research has shown that patients receive a higher level of culturally competent care from nurses who are from their own cultural background. Administrators and faculty working in Schools of Nursing must recognize this important fact and take action to ensure the admissions, progression, and graduation of minority students meet the needs of the population demographics of the community, resulting in better promotion of cultural competency in the healthcare system. Diverse students have different learning needs and barriers; therefore, policies and support services must be in place for these individuals to progress and graduate. Key strategies, according to our research, will be discussed regarding how faculty and administrators can best support the needs for diverse students to ensure progression and graduation in an online RN-BSN program
