This study describes the ongoing experience to reform the pedagogical project of the undergraduate nursing program from Federal University of Ceará, based on the curricular guidelines approved by CNE/CE,S in 2001. It exposes the process of compliance the professors and students had to go through in order to abidy by the proposal introduced by LDB/96 (Basic Guidelines Law/96), as well as the different stages neeeded to build referential, conceptual, and philosophical landmarks. The difficulties experienced relate to a poor commitment of professors to this process, due to the peculiar situation of the program: many professors retiring; a high number of substitute professors under provisional circumstances, which refrained them from long-term commitment. The adoption of a political-pedagogical project aimed at a reform of nursing teaching cannot occur in this situation..
political-pedagogical project; nursing teaching; participation