Since 2019, the University of Arizona College of Nursing’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing integrative health pathway has occupied the entire third floor of the University Building in downtown Gilbert, Arizona. A $300,000 expansion, approved by the Town of Gilbert in December 2021, now accommodates the College of Nursing’s Master of Science in Nursing – Entry to the Profession program.
The MEPN program, which moved to Gilbert from the Phoenix Bioscience Core, occupies an entire floor, giving the college more classroom space overlooking the downtown Heritage District. This space houses two accelerated nursing programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels.
“We are thrilled the MEPN program has the opportunity to join the Gilbert campus and our University of Arizona BSN-IH students and colleagues,” said Kelley Miller Wilson, DNP, MSN, CMSRN, director of the MEPN program. “The classroom and experiential learning capabilities are exceptional and provide students with an outstanding, well-rounded nursing education.”
The University Building is equipped with an eight-bed skills lab and a nursing simulation suite designed to replicate a hospital patient-care setting, which was a major factor in the College of Nursing’s decision to expand in Gilbert. The College of Nursing invested more than $300,000 to update the third floor of the University Building with speaker systems, technical infrastructure and state-of-the-art simulation equipment.
The MEPN program retrains students with university degrees in other fields to become nurses, while simultaneously earning a master’s degree with the goal of becoming registered nurses.
The melding of the BSN-IH and MEPN programs in the same building will help educate and train new generations of Wildcat nurses who are desperately needed to fill an anticipated nursing shortage of almost 1 million nurses by 2030.
