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Boise State Nursing Program gets new look
Trent Lootens, Arbiter Journalist
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A new $25 million Science/Nursing building will provide new opportunities for current and future nursing students at Boise State University.
The building, which is currently under construction, is located on the south side of Boise State’s main campus behind the Student Recreation Center. The building is scheduled for completion in October of 2009 (in time for the spring semester of 2010).
Joining the nursing program inside the new Science/Nursing Building will be the Health Wellness and Counseling Center. The two programs both have wanted a shared building.
“There will be a synergy between our college and Health Wellness and Counseling that will be a great way to help us interact with students’ health services here on campus which will be a huge advantage for faculty and students,” College of Health Sciences Dean James Girvan said. “We have always wanted to have Health Wellness and Counseling and the College of Health Sciences co-located. We think there is so much opportunity for shared educational experiences for students, faculty seminars and clinical services to students as well.”
According to Girvan, finding and raising the money to construct a structure of this magnitude was not easy. The state of Idaho does not help fund projects like these compared to other states where Girvan
previously taught.
By partnering with Health Wellness and Counseling, which is a student-fee-funded program, the College of Health Sciences was able to get a lot of the funding through student fees.
The new building, to be named the Norco Building, received $2 million funding boost from Jim Kissler, president and CEO of Norco Corporation. The Norco Corporation specializes in health devices and delivery of oxygen to those who are reliant on oxygen for respiratory purposes.
“He loved the idea of having it with Health Wellness and Counseling, so he offered to put up the money if the hospitals would match it and other donors could be found,” Girvan said.
Kissler and Norco’s donation was then matched by hospitals in Boise like St. Luke’s and St. Alphonsus.
“After the hospitals matched Norco’s offer a few other private donors came in and before we knew it the money was there and the planning could begin,” Girvan said.
Space was the biggest contributing factor holding the nursing department back from adding more faculty and students in the past. The new Science/Nursing Building will add 35 percent more space for the program’s use.
Having the extra space translates into more faculty, which translates into more students. That’s great news for nursing program applicants since the program has three to five times the amount of applicants than it can currently accept.
Some great additions to the new building include new labs that will be state-of-the-art in nearly every facet. There will be simulation labs that will all have programmable manikins. There is a visual and auditory data capture so that the manikins can be programmed to have any medical condition. The students will be working to determine the best procedure for patients.
Students will be filmed so they can watch themselves before going into hospitals for clinical work.
“The patient skill piece will be enhanced greatly over what it is before they go into the work force compared to now, which will be a huge advantage for students,” Girvan said.
Hospitals within the community will be able to take part in the new labs as well.
The labs will be used by local hospitals so existing teams of medical personnel (i.e., doctors and nurses) can do training exercises.
When nursing students at BSU aren’t practicing on manikins in the premier lab facilities they can help treat real students at the Health Center.
“We’re going to be taking some of our nursing practitioners and using them to help see student patients at the Health Center because of the proximity,” Girvan said. “That will be an advantage for students to help better their health and use the great staff that we have at the Health Center to get more students better attention that was not available before.”
The Science/Nursing building at Boise State is a testament to the direction the university is headed. Upon completion, the facility will bring new frontiers for students and staff at BSU.
Thanks to the generous donors and the hard work from the college of Health Sciences, Boise State has moved one step closer to being one of the premier nursing universities in the west.