Nevada State College plans to expand nursing program

While many Nevada hospitals face a shortage of nurses, Nevada State College has tripled the number of students enrolled in its nursing program since the program opened in 2003.

"We are fortunate in that nursing has a demand. We take 40 students three times per year, and we have about 60 to 70 applicants each time," said Fred Maryanski, Nevada State College president.

By fall 2008, Maryanksi said the college plans to increase each class size from 40 to 48 students.

"We've been looking at increasing 24 more students a year every other year," he said.

To meet the demand of Nevada State College's increased enrollment, school officials have requested that the state fund the construction of a new nursing and science building. Maryanski said he hopes that the building will take about three to five years to complete.

Maryanski said he is requesting about $23 million to support a three-fold increase in enrollment in the next five years.

The new building would be at Nevada State College's main campus at 1125 Nevada State Drive.

This year, Nevada State College will graduate about 125 nursing students, according to Connie Carpenter, dean of the Nevada State College School of Nursing.

Nevada State College offers two traditional enrollment tracks and one accelerated track for nursing students. The accelerated track runs from one August to the next, and students who already have their bachelor's degree in one field can earn their nursing degree in one year.

In addition, Nevada State College offers a registered nurse to bachelor's of science in nursing program in which students who already have earned an RN degree at CCSN or a similar program can take online courses to get the requirements needed for a bachelor's degree.

Currently, the school has more than 550 nursing and pre-nursing students and contributes to about 20 percent of all nursing program graduates in the Nevada State System of Higher Education.

Carpenter said the program needs bigger classrooms, lecture space and labs.

"We need more labs so we won't be running over each other," Carpenter said.

Carpenter said many faculty members have to share office space.

"It would be nice for all the faculty to have individual offices. Probably half the offices have two faculty members in them," she said.

St. Rose Dominican Hospitals recently donated $50,000 each to Nevada State College, the University of Southern Nevada and CCSN for the hospitals' College to Careers program.

The hospitals will pay $8,000 per student for 12 students from each school in return for a job contract for a predetermined amount of time with St. Rose. The money is used to pay for the students' tuition and schooling. Each of the schools determines the criteria used in choosing which students can participate in the program.

Currently, most of the students enrolled in the program come from Nevada State College, with 13 students.

Mary Chalfant, director of education for St. Rose Hospitals, said the program has been in place for three years and has helped 19 students since it started. Although the number is small, she said the program is definitely helping.

"Is it a huge impact? Probably not. Is it something I think we should be doing? I do," Chalfant said.

Chalfant said in order to make a huge impact, the hospital would have to donate more money. The hospital recently added Apollo College in Las Vegas to its list of schools that will benefit from the College to Careers program.

"I think a really important thing is that our hospital is trying to donate these kind of dollars," she said.

"As more schools come into the valley, I foresee us giving money to those schools, as well."

For more information, visit nsc.nevada.edu.