Five Questions With: The Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard

THE REV. KENNETH R. SICARD, president of Providence College, recently announced that the college will launch a new School of Nursing and Health Sciences. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

The Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard is the president of Providence College. The Dominican Friars college recently announced that it will launch a new School of Nursing and Health Sciences on campus.

Sicard spoke with Providence Business News about the new school, what it will offer and about partnering with the local health care sector for career opportunities.

PBN: What was the impetus on creating the nursing school at PC?

SICARD: When I was elected president three years ago, the board of trustees said to me, “I want you to think big and bold, and come up with something new and exciting for Providence College.”

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One of my major goals as president is to give us even greater national recognition, and that comes from our academic programs. [I asked myself] what are we missing here at PC. Nursing came to me almost immediately. From my first days as president, I was thinking about it. Then, we went into COVID-19. After that was over, it was time to make the announcements … and this was one of the initiatives I was thinking about.

PBN: What will the new school offer for students?

SICARD: It’s basically going to be three degrees. There will be a Bachelor of Science in nursing, a Bachelor of Science in health sciences. There is already an existing bachelor’s [degree] in science in health policy and management. We’ve offered that for a number of years, but that’s moved over to the School of Nursing and Health Sciences.

Initially, we’re going to be focusing on undergraduates, but my goal is, as soon as we can, to offer master’s programs. Eventually, we want to provide education to nurse practitioners.

PBN: How soon will graduate-level programs be introduced?

SICARD: I would say in about two to three years. There’s some question about when we can actually do that or [if] we have to be accredited first. To get accredited, we need to graduate a full class. The moment we’re able to get the approval to start master’s programs, we plan on doing it.

PBN: Which local health care organizations is PC partnering with to connect students with career opportunities in the industry?

SICARD: It will start with our clinical placements [in health organizations]. Once they get to know our students, they will be excited to welcome them into their workforce. Once we are at the point where students are doing clinical placements, we will start talking with the CEOs at all these health systems for future work for our students.

We met with all the local CEOs from the hospitals with their nursing executives and [human resources] people. We also met with community health center directors and nursing home directors. To a person, they were so enthusiastic about the idea of a nursing school at PC, and there is such a need for nursing in Rhode Island.

We’re looking to incent our graduating students to remain in Rhode Island for a couple years after graduation. Once we get our master’s programs started, we may work out some kind of tuition remission. We do something similar for students who teach at Catholic schools.

PBN: Where will students take courses while the new school is constructed? And how will the building’s construction costs be funded?

SICARD: We are already in the process of converting a whole floor in one of our existing classroom buildings into the facilities we need for the early classes in nursing and health sciences, including a clinical lab and a hospital room-type setting. That will be ready probably by the time we enroll the students in the fall [of 2023].

For the building itself, we are still exploring funding opportunities. We’ll probably issue more debt because we’re in a place where we are able to issue more debt if we need to. I think there’s going to be a lot of philanthropy associated with this. We’ve talked to potential donors and trustees. They are super excited about the new nursing and health sciences program. I think we’re going to get a lot of philanthropic support. We’re going to begin a very comprehensive campaign in the next couple of years, and that’s going to be one of the major goals to fundraise for the new school.

James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on Twitter at @James_Bessette

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