University of Nebraska-Lincoln Celebrates Construction of New College of Nursing, Student Health Building
On December 9th, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) celebrated the official start of construction on the new University of Nebraska Medical Center’s (UNMC) College of Nursing Lincoln Division and University Health Center building. The shared facility will be built on UNL’s campus, providing a collaborative space to better serve students from both universities.
The new 107,000-square-foot building was announced in 2008 after state Legislature committed $12 million to the $44 million project. After several years of planning, construction on the new building will finally begin this coming Spring. Once finished, the building will house UNL’s student health and dental programs, and Nebraska Medicine’s counseling and psychiatric services. Putting both programs into a shared space creates savings and increased effectiveness in utilities, space, and technology.
UNMC’s College of Nursing Lincoln division will also share the building to house its on-campus space. Juliann Sebastian, Dean of UNMC’s College of Nursing, told the Lincoln Journal Star that, “This new facility will be a game-changer [that] gives us space to allow students to become nurses and to become faculty through our graduate programs. They will do so when we need them the most.”
Collaboration between both universities in their shared building space is intended to address a projected shortage of 8,400 nurses across Nebraska by 2024. The state-of-the-art teaching facility will allow the hiring of more faculty and more research on best nursing practices to better serve the needs of university nursing students.