Nursing college expands as demand for nurses increases

“It has never been a better time to be a nurse,” said Sarah Barger, dean of the Capstone College of Nursing on her college’s Web site. At the University, this may hold true.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held two weeks ago for the new nursing building, and nursing students are being exposed to a variety of resources and technologies. However, as the demand for nurses grows higher, can the Capstone keep up?

The construction for the new School of Nursing will start in April 2009 and is projected to be completed by summer 2010. In the meantime, students are shuffled throughout 13 buildings, a statistic which state Senator Phil Poole called “outrageous” at the groundbreaking ceremony Oct. 10.

Nursing students say the constant change of buildings has its benefits.

“During my first semester we had to bounce around a lot,” said Eric Van Nostrand, a junior majoring in nursing. “But I enjoyed having several different buildings. Having to walk across campus let me see new people and feel like I was more a part of campus.”

Molly Jones, a freshman majoring in nursing, said because being a nursing major requires a diverse selection of courses, she has had classes all around campus.

“Sometimes it is stressful to get across campus for my next class, but I figure that nursing is a profession of constant stress, so I [have to] start somewhere,” Jones said.

Nevertheless, the location of the new building will have its perks, said Miranda Winter, a junior majoring in nursing and the treasurer of the Alabama Association of Nursing Students.

“It will be much more convenient to have classes in new building, especially across from hospital,” Winter said. “Certain things we had to do in labs would be a lot more applicable in a hospital [setting].”

With an enrollment of 1,300 undergraduates and 150 graduate students, the college is feeling some growing pains, Van Nostrand said.

“Because of the demand [for nurses], we need more nurses and we need more faculty,” Winter said. “New faculty are few and far between, especially good ones.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be openings for more than one million nursing positions between now and 2020. To prepare students for real-world opportunities, the college utilizes the nearby hospitals, such as Bryce and DCH.

Van Nostrand, who goes to DCH for his fundamentals class, said going to the hospital is helpful.

“[Going there] gets you ready to make decisions,” he said.

Due to the close proximity of the hospitals, Winters said UA nursing students are at an advantage.

“We experience a lot of different angles of the medical field in a short amount of time,” she said.

Advancements in technology have been integrated to the College of Nursing, but Van Nostrand said the transition to a full eLearning system could have gone more smoothly.

“While [the faculty] are all working really hard to get it to be the best it can be, it does hit snags every now and then,” he said.

Winter also cited technology and simulators as areas needing improvement within the college.

One thing some students agreed on was the quality of the faculty members.

“All of my teachers that I’ve had so far were all students here and they learned from the nursing school here,” Van Nostrand said. “They are definitely good at what they do. They are not there to make it easy for you, and it’s definitely been a challenging semester, but they are always willing to talk you through any problems you may have.”

“All [of] the faculty seems nice, knowledgeable and they seem to absolutely love the nursing profession,” Jones said.

In addition to helping in the classroom, almost 100 percent of the nursing faculty donated to the Capital Campaign, which funds construction projects, said Shelly Jordan, director of advancement for the Capstone College of Nursing.

Due to the nursing school’s intensive course load, it is easy to feel left out on campus, Van Nostrand said.

“It’s hard sometimes because you focus all of your energy on one subject, not a wide variety all over campus. You don’t meet a wide variety of people, which has its ups and downs. You get to know those people really well, but you don’t as many,” he said.

“A lot of people have misconceptions about [being a nursing major]. They think it’s one of the easier majors on campus, but I’ve had more difficulty in my upper division nursing classes than I had in any of my math classes for chemical engineering,” said Van Nostrand. “It’s challenging, but it’s also fun.”

So, does the Capstone College hold true to the dean’s statement of the opportune time to be in nursing?

“I think we’re going in the right direction,” Winter said.

“I totally agree with [the dean]. Nurses are always in demand. It does not matter it the economy is floundering or flourishing, people always get sick, and they need well educated and caring people to take care of them. As our population grows in the number of elderly people, the need of nurses becomes even more necessary,” Jones said.