While the campus's footprint will not be expanding, its interior space will be renovated, approximately tripling the amount of space for the School of Nursing. The project will increase the number of simulation and skills labs, and the number of active learning classrooms.
“It was our desire to see what we could do to help reduce the need for nurses,” Berry said. “So that meant for us, asking, ‘What can we do to expand our enrollment? Can we graduate more nurses per year to try to meet those workforce needs in Texas?’”
At a glance
The renovation is estimated to cost around $13 million-$14 million. Berry said SHSU has been planning the renovation for around 2 1/2 years.
Berry said generally, the three barriers that keep nursing schools from expanding are a lack of space, clinical placements and nursing faculty. The renovation will address the lack of space barrier.
“For us to be able to increase the number of students we were educating, we needed to increase the number of classrooms and labs that we had,” Berry said.
Berry said the simulation labs act similarly to flight simulators, teaching students in a simulated setting. The labs also help reduce the number of hours a student needs to be in a clinical setting if they can increase the hours they’re in a simulated environment.
“The clinical hours remain very important and we meet our standards in achieving those, but this allows us to give the students even more practice in a safe and controlled environment,” Berry said.
Looking ahead
Berry said since the School of Nursing began graduating students around 13 years ago, about 1,400 nurses have been placed in the community.
Once the renovation is complete around September 2026, the university anticipates beginning a three-year growth plan to increase enrollment by nearly 70% and go from enrolling 85 students twice a year to enrolling 144 students twice a year. Berry said that would move the school from being around 400-500 students to 650-750 students.
