A $1 million philanthropic commitment from East Alabama Medical Center, or EAMC, is paving the way for the future of nursing education in the state of Alabama and in the entire region. The Opelika, Alabama-based hospital is providing the support Auburn University’s School of Nursing needs to obtain a new building, which will not only grow enrollment for the program, but will enhance the student’s overall academic learning experiences. In return, this will also help combat the rise of nursing shortages across the nation.
As part of Because This is Auburn — A Campaign for Auburn University, the school is striving to raise a total of $4.8 million in private support, which will be matched with university funds, to make this new building a reality. The new nursing building will be constructed at the corner of South Donahue Drive and Lem Morrison Drive in the campus’ developing Health Sciences Sector, which includes the Auburn campus of the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine and plans for a future Harrison School of Pharmacy building. The school’s new building will more than quadruple its current 11,700 square feet of space in Miller Hall, thereby increasing capacity for the school’s teaching, simulation and research activities.
“Auburn is a leader in preparing nurses for 21st century practice and redefining primary care delivery,” said Nursing Dean Gregg Newschwander. “To continue preparing nursing’s future workforce, we must provide our students with a state-of-the-art facility offering innovative learning environments that support simulation, problem-based learning and clinical and translational research. East Alabama Medical Center’s generous support increases our ability to stabilize staffing shortages that plague our industry.”
During the past four years, Auburn has responded to the healthcare industry’s call to increase student enrollment by more than doubling its undergraduate nursing enrollment and quadrupling its graduate nursing enrollment. This growth, unfortunately, has strained its current instructional capacity in terms of both space and faculty-to-student ratios. A new School of Nursing building will provide modern, expanded spaces accommodating more students wishing to pursue a nursing career and the additional faculty required to teach them.
EAMC’s $1 million commitment is the largest received to date in support of a new nursing building and represents but one element of its decades-long academic partnership with the school.
East Alabama Medical Center is a 340-bed regional referral hospital serving a six-county area and employing more than 3,000 employees in conjunction with Valley, Alabama-based affiliate hospital, EAMC-Lanier. EAMC is regionally recognized for multiple specialties, including heart surgery, orthopedics and cancer treatment, and maintains a medical partnership with Auburn University through the Auburn University Medical Clinic. For more information, go to www.eamc.org.
Because This is Auburn — A Campaign for Auburn University is a historic $1 billion comprehensive fundraising effort supporting four major areas across the university. Auburn’s goal is to create thousands of new scholarships for students, to endow more than 100 new chairs and professorships for educators and researchers, to develop programs that will allow the Auburn Family to connect with people everywhere and to build new facilities and reimagine existing campus facilities. Learn more online at www.because.auburn.edu.