Within the month, DePaul will open new facilities including state-of-the- art equipment in the School of Nursing in Lincoln Park valued at $1.6 million. Within the year, the nursing program will open a second campus in North Chicago. Within the next 10 years, the number of employed nurses is expected to grow by 712,000.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 300,000 new jobs were added to the healthcare sector in 2011, and projections for the next decade identify nursing at the top occupation for job growth at 26 percent from 2010-2020.

It was in this climate that DePaul initiated an alliance with Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science and made a significant investment in its School of Nursing.

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Investing in Nursing

The dual campus program is not the only recent development in the School of Nursing. New facilities opening within the month on Fullerton are the result of a $1.6 million investment in the program.

The school has applied these funds to three new nursing classrooms along with an expansion of DePaul’s virtual simulation lab equipment.

“It’s fabulous,” said William Cody, director of the School of Nursing. “It’s state of the art, and we’re very lucky that the university supported us to build something as sophisticated as it is.”

The simulators are designed to replace in-classroom work like case study analysis. While it does not replace clinical training, life-like simulators come close to replicating that process.

“The simulators are like having a robot in the hospital bed,” said Matthew Sorensen, associate professor of nursing at DePaul. “The students are able to interact with the manikins as if they were real people.”

Simulators give students, such as 29-year-old Jennifer Rivi, an opportunity to practice their skills in situations they might not come across in clinical training.

“In clinical we do not always get to see everything, so having this equipment provides us with experiences we may not (otherwise) have before we graduate,” said Rivi

While simulators have been an important part of nursing curricula around the country and at DePaul for the past decade, Cody argues that DePaul’s recent expansion of the technology provides a new kind of advantage.

“Simulation in nursing education is no longer new, it’s been considered to be an important part for going on ten years,” said Cody. “Wisdom has accumulated and we can use the research and experience of other schools and apply all of this collective wisdom to make the most of the budget that was given to us.”

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DePaul in North Chicago

Rosalind Franklin’s campus is located in North Chicago, roughly 40 minutes from DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus. It is here that DePaul’s Master’s Entry in Nursing Practice (MENP) program will open its second location in September.

This two-year program is designed for students who already have a bachelor’s degree in another discipline, but decide they want to pursue a career in nursing.

Master’s of Entry into Nursing Practice students have a diverse range of bachelor’s degrees, from traditional science backgrounds like biology and chemistry to less conventional degrees, including one student with a PhD in Christian morality.

“A lot of them would tell you they weren’t sure what they wanted to do at first. We would like to think that all of our students chose nursing because they really want to be in health care, but we recognize that some people are here because nursing pays better than other things,” said Sorensen. “I’d say about 70 percent are here because they really want to be nurses.”

DePaul’s program is made up of 172 female and 27 male students for a total of 199, but the school is hoping to add as many as 24 students at the new location.

“The program will have the same curriculum on both campuses, but we encourage the students not to switch between campuses,” said Sorensen.

The dual-campus plan includes a staff expansion. Two new faculty members have already been hired for the new campus, with more to come. Professors who teach in Lincoln Park will stay in Lincoln Park.

“We won’t be taking any people from down here, so we won’t be stretching our resources on this campus,” said Sorensen.

For some DePaul students commuting from outside the city, the new campus could mean shorter commutes. Rivi decided to move back in with her parents in Mundelein to avoid high rent in Lincoln Park while attending DePaul’s MENP program. “Living near DePaul’s campus is expensive, and on top of tuition just seemed unreasonable,” said Rivi.

Rivi says her current commute is between one and two hours depending on traffic, but would be halved if she attended classes in North Chicago. On the other hand, there could be a social cost to leaving the Lincoln Park campus.

“I think one major down side would be losing touch with many of the people in my cohort,” said Rivi. “We all have grown fairly close and many of them live in Chicago.”

The Master’s Entry into Nursing Practice program is holding an open house for prospective students at the Rosalind Franklin campus in North Chicago April 27.