MTSU Expands Nursing School

Middle Tennessee State University will soon double the number of students in its Nursing School.

This morning, MTSU officially opened a nearly 24-thousasnd square foot addition to the Cason-Kennedy Nursing Building. With the expanded facility, the school can admit 64 students each semester into the registered nursing program. Previously, it could only handle 36 in each incoming class. In addition, an accelerated program begun last semester has room for 100 Licensed Practical Nurses a year to earn their Bachelors of Science degree in Nursing.

The new wing is the final step in a plan enacted three years ago to enhance the program. The school has already raised its admission standards, created new scholarships, and made the curriculum more challenging. Director Lynn Parson says the first class to work under the new, tougher standards recently graduated with a 100-percent pass rate. In the face of a projected nursing shortage, Parson says the school must do more than just try to graduate more nurses.

“We are growing in quantity and we will deliver many, many more registered nurses in our community. Our pledge is this: our quality for educational excellence in nursing will not wane, our standards will not decrease, this is what our community has come to expect from us, and that you can count on.”

A recent study by Vanderbilt University lowered the estimate of how many new nurses will be needed as baby boomers retire, thanks in part to a new trend of students in their 20s and 30s entering nursing school. However, the study did still find that there will be a national shortfall of 340-thousand nurses by the year 2020.