Texas State University School of Nursing

Texas State University School of Nursing

Written by Amy Stansbury Friday, 06 June 2008

 

The Texas State University Board of Regents approved a new nursing program that will be offered at the Round Rock Higher Education Center campus starting in the fall of 2010. Dr. Ruth Welborn, dean of the College of Health Professions at Texas State, said 100 students will be admitted the first year.

“We’re under the gun. We’re going to admit our first class of junior classified students,” Welborn said. “They will have their freshman and sophomore prerequisites prior to being admitted, and those courses could be taken any place.”

Welborn is conducting a national search for three initial faculty for the program, including a director, and expects to have them hired by September.

The RRHEC will soon receive $438,000 from the 2008 Department of Education budget for the new nursing program. St. David’s Community Health Foundation also donated $6 million to help establish the new School of Nursing. In recognition of the donation, Texas State named the school the St. David’s School of Nursing.

Texas State already offers a class in health administration at the Avery building, the first building at the RRHEC campus. Design plans for a second building to house the nursing school will be presented to the Board of Regents for approval in August. The three-story building is expected to be 77,740 sq. ft. and feature classrooms, faculty offices and simulation practice laboratories, which will include a maternal and child health lab, an intensive and critical care lab, medical surgical lab, basic skills lab and a home care lab.

“The home care lab is really kind of unusual. With patients going home so quickly after hospitalization, a lot of the care continues in the home. So, we’re going to have a simulated apartment in which students will benefit from learning how to teach patients how to get around the bed and TV to the bathroom.”

Texas State is planning for more growth at the RRHEC campus in the next few years with the addition of third and fourth buildings, said RRHEC Director Edna Rehbein.

“In January 2009, we will be going to the legislature for money for the third building and possibly the fourth building,” Rehbein said. “The third building will definitely be for health professions or allied health programs. So, as soon as we know we’re getting that money, if we get it, then we’ll know which programs will be coming up here two to three years after that.”

The recent annexation of the rest of the Round Rock Independent School District into the ACC district and Texas State’s new School of Nursing is increasing educational opportunity for students, according to Rehbein.

“The whole idea is seamless education from high school, with those students taking some Early College Start classes, and then going on to ACC and eventually transferring to Texas State for their upper level courses,” Rehbein said. “Students will know early-on the courses they take at ACC will transfer to Texas State.”

The ACC annexation is positive for Texas State and the RRHEC, Rehbein said.

“We’re getting pretty full at the Avery building and we’re [Texas State] going to need some additional space, so it’s probably time for [ACC] to move into their building and vacate some of the space they’ve been using here,” she said. “The plan was always for ACC to move into their space within about five years.”

ACC has always been the largest feeder into Texas State in San Marcos, so Rehbein expects ACC to continue to be a natural feeder into the university’s campus in Round Rock, too.

“It’s definitely going to impact our enrollment because with ACC being able to offer many more of the core classes and many more of the majors that they offer, it’s just going to increase that transfer rate significantly,” Rehbein said. “We anticipate many of those students continuing with us when they get to the junior level courses.”

Texas State will be able to offer more core classes once ACC opens its new building in the fall of 2010.

“Some of the majors we offer still require certain core classes that students need, like history and upper level literature that students can’t get at ACC because they’re upper-level courses,” Rehbein said. “Right now, sometimes they’re actually having to go down to San Marcos, which of course is not what they want to do.”