State-Of-The-Art Nursing Facility Opens On Campus

This spring, students, faculty and staff celebrated the opening of CSUSM’s new state-of-the-art nursing facility, bringing nurse education on campus for the first time since the program’s inception in the fall of 2006. Previously, the School of Nursing (SoN) was housed in the Palomar Health building on Craven Drive.

“This is beautiful. I’m really impressed,” said nursing alumna Tracie Neff, a medical-surgical nurse at Sharp Memorial Hospital, who attended the Open House in February. “This is what I always envisioned a nursing school to look like.”

The renovation of the third floor of University Hall to create an on-campus home for the School of Nursing was completed in December 2014. The result is an attractive, 12,000-square-foot facility with the additional space and enhancements to meet the needs of the School, which has grown rapidly in the last several years, to offer bachelor’s and master’s programs with many flexible options. The new facility has a larger nursing skills lab with 11 beds, a state-of-the art simulation theater and four mock exam rooms designed for use by graduate students in the nurse practitioner program. In addition, there are eight faculty offices, nine lecturer stations and an entrance to the school from Palm Court.

Denise Boren, director of SoN, said the school’s on-campus location would offer many opportunities for greater camaraderie and collaborations with the campus community.

“Our students will have the chance to mingle with other students on campus and use facilities like the University Student Union,” Boren said. “Our faculty will get to know the faculty here. Being on campus gives us greater opportunities to collaborate with other departments within the College of Education, Health and Human Services that we are a part of. We are working with faculty from speech language pathology, social work and kinesiology to develop scenarios where our students can work together.”