PROVIDENCE – A new nursing school, with the goal of providing additional career opportunities within the health care sector, will be launched at Providence College.
The Dominican Friars college announced Monday that it will launch its new School of Nursing and Health Sciences, which will build on its existing health policy programming the college offers students. PC says the new school will introduce two new degree programs – a bachelor of science in nursing and a bachelor of science in health sciences. The college will roll its bachelor of science in health policy and management into the new school.
PC said it received formal approval Monday from the R.I. Board of Nurse Registration and Nursing Education to proceed with the nursing bachelor’s program. That ruling came after both PC’s Faculty Senate and board of trustees voted last spring to move forward with the new school and its programming, the college said.
PC said it will now begin accepting students for the two new degree programs for enrollment in the fall of 2023. PC President Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard says the new programming for the nursing and health sciences school are springboards to health care careers at a time when there is a shortage of such workers in Rhode Island and across the U.S. due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Programs like nursing, which focus on the care of others, respect for the dignity of every person, and the importance of service to God and neighbor, flow naturally from and support the Catholic and Dominican mission of Providence College,” Sicard said in a statement.
PC is currently conducting a nationwide search for a nursing department chairperson at the college. In the meantime, Brother Ignatius Perkins will serve as the department’s interim nursing director.
The college also said it has begun planning to construct on campus a 100,000-square-foot facility to house the School of Nursing and Health Sciences. Sicard previously told Providence Business News the new school will be built on the campus’ east side near Eaton Street. When the new school comes online, Sicard expects PC’s enrollment to increase by an additional 100 new students per year, “building up to between 500 and 600 additional students” on campus over the next five years.
PC says the college expects to break ground in the near future and anticipates that the project will be completed in time to sustain clinical practice in the spring of 2025.
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.
I realize there is a shortage of health care professionals, but do we really need 3 separate schools of nursing in RI? Seems to me there should be a more economical way to train nurses than to have 3 separate facilities doing the same thing. How about combining the RIC and URI
nursing schools and let PC students enroll in the RICURI nursing courses.