Clemson University School of Nursing and Greenville Health System Open New Facility

According to the US Health Resources and Services Administration, South Carolina is projected to have a shortage of registered nurses by 2030. The shortage is expected to be more significant than in most other states, possibly topping 10,000 nurses.

Clemson University’s School of Nursing and the Greenville Health System (GHS) recently collaborated on a plan to address that shortage in the state of South Carolina through the opening of the Clemson University Nursing building. The building is an education and research facility that houses an expansion of Clemson’s baccalaureate nursing program at GHS, which opened in August.

Clemson’s new building allowed the School of Nursing to increase its first-year enrollment from 64 in fall 2015 to 173 in fall 2018. The university expects to increase total enrollment in the baccalaureate program to top 700 by 2021.

Kathleen Valentine, director of Clemson’s School of Nursing, tells Clemson.world, “The collaboration will not only expand our enrollment, but will also integrate teaching and clinical practice in innovative ways that will positively impact nursing education and patient outcomes.”

Nursing students at Clemson take their general education and nursing foundation courses on the main campus during their freshman and sophomore years. Then they are placed into one of two cohorts allowing students to complete their nursing courses in Greenville under the guidance of Clemson faculty and complete their clinical rotations at a GHS campus, or take their junior and senior nursing courses on Clemson’s main campus and complete their clinical rotations at health systems across the state, including GHS.