U-M School of Nursing to upgrade to new $50 million facility

With the University of Michigan Board of Regents' approval last week of a new $50 million facility for U-M's nursing program,  the new school is slated to occupy a building specifically designed for educational research in an academic setting for the first time in its 125-year history, according to Dr. Kathleen Potempa, dean of the U-M School of Nursing. For the past 25-30 years, it has been housed in the North Ingalls Building, a former hospital dating from 1913.

"We've ranked sixth in National Institutes of Health research funding. We have consistently ranked in the top 10 of U.S. News and World Report in terms of our academic program. And our students are requiring much more advancement in technology in their learning environment because they can get it elsewhere," Potempa explains.

The nursing school, which has grown enrollment by 26% since 2001, now has about 1,000 students. The current facility has small classrooms, according to Potempa, while its common areas have only 43 chairs for all of the students. And its simulation space, an "academic theater" where props introduce in the entire gamut of settings nurses experience, is just 2,500 square feet.

"The new facility will have roughly 13,000 square feet of simulation and technology-mediated learning, from low- to high- fidelity. And that's much more in line with the national benchmarks of the top schools," says Potempa.

When the new 75,000-square-foot facility opens, likely in the fall of 2015, Potempa says, the current North Ingalls facility will be retained and used for faculty offices, conferences, and research. Over the next decade, the program plans to add 40 faculty and staff members in accordance with the expansion of its student body and research.

Source: Dr. Kathleen Potempa, dean of the U-M School of Nursing
Writer: Tanya Muzumdar