The swiftly evolving School of Nursing is planning a major building project that will more than double the school's useable space and will bring together faculty and students currently scattered across five locations.
Coming at a time of rapid expansion within the nursing school's curriculum, the new building will simultaneously provide facilities for future growth and will address what faculty members call a long-standing need for more research and office space.
"We are the most under-spaced school on campus," said Mary Champagne, dean of the School of Nursing. "We need the building just to have reasonable operations now, and we are going to continue to grow."
The School of Nursing currently occupies less than 20,000 square feet of space, an insufficient amount that has hampered their goal to emphasize research among the faculty, Champagne said.
An accelerated bachelor's degree was recently added to supplement the school's established master's program, and a doctoral program is in the early planning stages.
"We're very crunched right now," said Anthony Adinolfi, director of the Adult Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program, adding that some faculty members have been forced to share an office. As a light at the end of the tunnel, Adinolfi noted that all nursing faculty members have been promised larger offices in the new building.
Phase One of the proposed project will provide approximately 33,000 square feet of useable space, and a second planned phase will add a 15,500-square-foot wing to the initial building. Once that is completed, the School of Nursing will vacate its current main building, Hanes House, across from Trent Drive Hall.
The planned facility will probably occupy a spare lot next to Hanes House. "The building will face the Medical Center, so as to unite nursing fully with the Medical Center," Champagne explained.
She particularly stressed the benefit of bringing all elements of the school together in one location. "We have a very dispersed faculty and student body," she said. "It's made communication more difficult... and the synergy that is a result of that [communication]."
Adinolfi agreed, pointing to current facilities in far-removed locations such as Duke South, the Orange Zone sub-basement in Duke North, the Bell Building and rented space on Ninth Street. "There's just a lot of extra traveling and difficulty," he said. "It'll be better for all faculty to be under one roof, and it will help students, too."
The building project was recently approved by the University Committee on Facilities and Environment, and will be presented for final approval to the Board of Trustees at its February meeting.
Although he could not confirm that the project will be approved, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask agreed nursing needs improved space. "There's no doubt that [nursing is] facility-poor, both in terms of quality and quantity," he said.
Champagne was confident of the building's eventual approval. "I think it will definitely pass," she said. "The only major stumbling block I see ahead is raising $10-12 million to fund it."
Gordon Williams, vice dean of administration and finance at the School of Medicine, expressed approval of the school's continued growth. "Nursing is undersized compared to our peers," he said. "[The building improvements] serve a long-standing need to expand."
Champagne emphasized the importance of the nursing profession to the strength of both the Medical Center and the medical profession as a whole. "It's critical for the future of health care, especially with the current nursing shortage, for Duke to take the lead in training top-quality nursing staff."
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