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Hospital group
helps save some nurses
by Lauren Shepherd
Related
Stories:
- College Crisis
- Two Virginia Nobels in one
year
- Virginia schools feel the
pain
It
was a peculiar scene for a college open house. As prospective
students toured the campus of Christopher Newport University
on a drizzly Saturday in November, they chanced upon
two nursing students holding up posters protesting that
drastic budget cuts had chopped the entire nursing program.
Nursing was one of three programs to get the axe, leaving
150 future nurses in the lurch.
All
was not lost, however. Riverside Health System came
to the rescue, plugging one hole in the Newport News
school’s drained budget. A nonprofit health care
system with three hospitals in the state, Riverside
announced that it would put up a quarter of a million
dollars to fund the nursing program for one more year.
That will allow 23 seniors to graduate on time. Twenty-six
juniors will also be able to complete their nursing
degrees at CNU and graduate in 2004.
Riverside’s
action is one example of business stepping up to the
plate to help ease the education budget crisis. “These
are folks who have put out a commitment to serve as
nurses,” says Bud Ramey, vice president of corporate
communications for Riverside. “The money side wasn’t
a consideration. It was about letting them finish their
education and getting them into the workplace instead
of leaving the kids hanging,” he says.
Beginning
in January, Riverside will provide nursing students
with classrooms, laboratory space and faculty offices
at the Warwick Medical and Professional Center across
the street from CNU. Indeed, Riverside is acting from
its own self-interest as much as altruism. About 80
percent of the graduates from CNU’s nursing program
have stayed in the community. Each year the school admits
about 30 students into the program, so about 24 stay
in the area.
Moreover,
Riverside plans to expand its own nursing school, the
Riverside School of Professional Nursing, and would
like to grow it by allowing CNU faculty members to continue
their teaching careers there. The Riverside Health System
Foundation has already set aside $5 million to fund
nursing scholarships. Ramey says the Foundation has
granted about 150 scholarships each year for the past
two years. “We’re getting about 500 applications
a month,” he says.
CNU
Nursing Department Chair Angela Wilson is delighted
that Riverside came to the rescue of the program’s
juniors and seniors. But she says the community will
still suffer because her department’s 47 sophomores
and 57 freshmen will have to transfer. “The sophomores
and freshman chose to attend CNU because our nursing
program has developed an excellent reputation at local
hospitals and health care facilities,” she says.
Return
to Virginia Business - January 2003
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