State pledges $2 million for nursing school
The state of Illinois pledged $2 million to Loyola University Health System to assist with costs in building a nursing school on the health system campus in the western suburbs. The Loyola University Chicago Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing will be built alongside the University’s Stritch School of Medicine, allowing medical and nursing students to share resources.
“State officials realize that nurses are the backbone of health care in the United States and that they need to address the shortage of nurses across the state,” says Karen Alexander, senior vice president of development and external affairs. “They believe helping Loyola construct this facility will increase the growth of a new generation of highly trained nurses in Illinois.”
Currently, the classrooms, clinics, and administration offices of the school of nursing are spread across the three campuses: Lake Shore, Water Tower, and Maywood. Consolidating nursing on the health sciences campus will allow future nurses and physicians to be trained together in an environment similar to what they will experience upon graduation. The new building also will allow for improved collaboration among the nursing school, Stritch, and the health system, as well as strengthen existing relationships and promote new ties with other healthcare facilities in the western suburbs.
Nursing students will benefit from a Clinical Simulation Center planned for the new facility, which will encourage small groups of learners to develop and enhance their clinical examination skills using high-tech patient simulator models that mirror the responses of human patients. A new learning center—the Health Sciences Bridge—also is planned between the medical school’s John & Herta Cuneo Center and the new school of nursing building. By making all books and materials available in digital format and accessible by computer, it will create a technology-rich learning environment where students, teachers, and researchers can interact.
Construction of the nursing school building is expected to begin in 2009. This project already has attracted the support of the Arthur Foundation, which has made a $10 million gift to the new building.