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School of Nursing Dean Eileen T. Breslin, RN, Ph.D., said that receiving increased funding to hire additional faculty members is one of the keys to educating more nursing students and getting them into the workforce.
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SAN ANTONIO (Oct. 6, 2009) — The UT Health Science Center San Antonio has just received $300,000 from The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to expand its incoming nursing classes for the 2010-2011 school year. And if benchmarks are met, the School of Nursing expects to receive an additional $450,000 to support even larger incoming classes the following academic year.

Successful program earns more funds
The funds were awarded due to the School of Nursing’s successful track record of increasing the number of incoming nursing students and then graduating them to enter the workforce. The school expects to increase its class size by 30 students in 2010-2011 and by 15 more students in 2011-2012, pending the additional funds.

Money will be used to hire more faculty members
“This is wonderful news and something we have been working on,” said School of Nursing Dean Eileen T. Breslin, RN, Ph.D. “These funds will go toward hiring an extra five faculty members to teach the additional students. Receiving funds to hire more faculty members is one of the keys to enrolling more students and getting them into the workforce. This funding further validates our successful nursing program.”

Funds awarded from the Professional Nursing Shortage Reduction Program
The School of Nursing received the funds from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s Professional Nursing Shortage Reduction Program. The funds were distributed to public and private professional nursing schools throughout the state that met the minimum 70 percent graduation rate during the 2007-2008 school year. The School of Nursing’s graduation rate in spring 2008 was 84 percent.

The new funding was authorized by the 81st Legislature, with $8,014,800 to be distributed to qualified Texas nursing schools for fiscal year 2010 and $12,503,088 to eligible programs in fiscal year 2011.

School of Nursing builds on previous enrollment and graduation success
This is the second time the School of Nursing has received Professional Nursing Shortage Reduction Program funds to increase enrollment. In 2007, following the 80th legislative session, the school received $686,500. “This was a one-time award we used to hire new faculty in order to start increasing enrollment and bring up the number of graduates joining the workforce. We received these dollars because we demonstrated the capacity to attract qualified candidates for admission and to graduate them in a timely fashion,” explained Rudy Gomez, assistant dean for administration and business officer for the School of Nursing.

“At that time, we also developed a business plan and budget to leverage this one-time funding to increase the enrollment of incoming nursing students from 100 in each entering class to 120. So, over the four semesters in the 2007-2008 biennium we admitted a total of 80 new students, with a graduation rate of 84 percent. This success led to the new funding we just received,” Gomez said.

As a result of receiving $300,000 from the Professional Nursing Shortage Reduction Program, the School of Nursing will be able to hire additional faculty to support increased admissions for the 2010-2011 academic year.

Major shortage spurs need for nurses nationally and in Texas
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 2.5 million registered nurses in the workforce in 2006. By 2016, 23 percent more nurses, an additional 587,000 nurses, will be needed.

The Texas Center for Nursing Workforce Studies forecasts a need of 25,000 new registered nurses for Texas alone by 2020 to meet the growing demand. Between 2005 and 2020, demand for registered nurses is expected to increase by 86 percent, with only a 53 percent increase expected to be supplied with current efforts and funding. Additional nursing faculty members are needed to support increased student enrollment.

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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is one of the leading research institutions in Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $668 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $16.3 billion biosciences and health care sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $36 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 26,400 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and other health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, visit www.uthscsa.edu.