Eight ABSN sites helping address national nursing shortage
Grand Canyon University has added to its burgeoning list of nursing sites across the country designed to help alleviate the national nursing shortage.
The university on Tuesday officially opened its Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing location in Creve Coeur, a St. Louis suburb.
The dedication ceremony featured talks by Provost Dr. Randy Gibb, Associate Dean of the ABSN Program Heather Ziemianski, and Greg Oppenhuizen, lead pastor at Cornerstone Covenant Church in Turlock, California. Oppenhuizen recently completed the ABSN program in Sun City, Arizona, and will work as both a nurse and pastor.
"The opening of GCU's accelerated BSN program in St. Louis represents a vital step in addressing the growing demand for qualified nurses in Missouri,” said Ziemianski. “By expanding our reach, we’re not only helping to alleviate the nursing shortage but also providing students with an opportunity to fast-track their nursing careers."
The St. Louis site will bring the number of the university’s ABSN locations to eight that have opened since 2020. It joins existing sites in Sun City, west Phoenix, Chandler and Tucson, Arizona; Sandy, Utah; Henderson, Nevada; and another new location in Meridian, Idaho, whose grand opening ceremony is slated for next semester.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects there will be 197,200 openings for registered nurses each year through 2033. The need for nursing professionals, the bureau reports, will grow by 6% through 2033, faster than the average for all occupations.
And according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, that shortfall is expected to surge as Baby Boomers age and their health care need grows.
GCU is working with Mercy, which will be the clinical partner for students based at the new Creve Coeur site. Mercy is the sixth largest Catholic health care system in the country. It operates more than 50 hospitals, urgent care centers, imaging centers and pharmacies, and touts more than 50,000 employees, approximately 15,000 of whom are in the St. Louis region.
“The St Louis site is a beautiful learning location for our nursing program," said Gibb. "We have an amazing hospital partner with Mercy, and the culture of GCU and Mercy are in complete alignment as we collaborate to help graduate more nurses and support health care needs in St. Louis and beyond.
“I was so impressed with the number of Mercy nurses that attended the grand opening event to learn and support our efforts.”
The grand opening was on Mercy Day, commemorated each year on Sept. 24, the day Catherine McAuley opened the first House of Mercy in Dublin, Ireland, in 1827 to serve the poor, sick and uneducated.
The first students at the St. Louis location began their studies on Sept. 3. The site has been approved by state regulators to take up to 24 students, with approval for future semesters to accept 72 students. The site is employing four full-time staff and faculty, along with adjunct professors.
Mercy staff at the opening included speaker Angela Sherman, vice president of clinical education, who was integral in developing the GCU partnership with Mercy; Robyn Weilbacher, chief nursing officer; and Julie Brooks, manager of nursing administration.
Like at the university’s other ABSN locations, students can complete the accelerated program in as little as 16 months, depending on previous education. It is designed for students who may have a degree in another field or have some college credits and want to re-career.
It’s also an alternate pathway for aspiring nurses who may have been turned away from traditional nursing programs, which are challenged by a lack of nursing educators and clinical rotation space.
The American Association of Colleges of Nursing reported that more than 66,000 qualified applicants were turned away from Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs in 2022 alone.
GCU’s ABSN program is a hybrid learning platform in which students, many of whom have families, jobs and other obligations, complete their didactic learning online and then travel to program sites, such as the one in St. Louis, to delve into their hands-on learning experiences with faculty.
That accelerated, 16-month time frame gets nurses into the workplace sooner.
“We can solve this (nursing shortage) problem,” said GCU President Brian Mueller at the dedication ceremony of the Chandler, Arizona, site in 2023. “But we can’t solve the problem with small programs. We need large, scalable programs that can operate on a national basis.”
Another site in Kansas City is slated to open in 2024-25. The goal, said Mueller, is to open 40 such GCU ABSN locations across the country over the next five years.
Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-7901.
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