Montana State celebrates opening of new nursing education building in Missoula

MISSOULA - Montanan Julia Huls has always sought opportunities to better the rural communities in her home state. Originally from Hamilton, she grew up working on her family's dairy farm and now, as a senior nursing student, she has worked in pediatric, neonatal and postpartum care to earn her clinical hours at Community Medical Center in Missoula.

Huls is set to graduate in December from Montana State University's Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing after completing her upper division nursing courses at MSU's nursing campus in Missoula. She is one of many students positively impacted by a historic $101 million donation from Mark and Robyn Jones to MSU, which has improved MSU's ability to teach more students like Huls the nuances of rural healthcare.

The 2021 gift - the largest donation to a U.S. nursing school at the time - is helping equip the college to serve the healthcare needs of Montanans today and in the future.

"Montana is inherently rural, and MSU is very focused on identifying and addressing some of the barriers that come with caring for rural communities and making sure that we really understand those as students before we transition into professional practice," said Huls.

The donation funded construction of brand new, state-of-the-art nursing education buildings on MSU's five nursing campuses in Bozeman, Billings, Kalispell, Great Falls and Missoula. The buildings replace a patchwork of older and mostly leased spaces used by the college before completion of the five major projects in 2025 and 2026.

MSU President Brock Tessman told Huls' story Tuesday at the grand opening of the new building in Missoula, the final of the five to be opened officially. Looking toward the snow-capped rolling hills surrounding Missoula, Tessman spoke to a crowd of over 150 students, faculty, clinical partners and other supporters who had come to celebrate the opening, watch the ribbon cutting and tour the building.

"What I appreciate most about Mark and Robyn Jones and their thinking about this gift is, of course, it's a statement about the future and a bet on what's possible down the road, but it's also a statement about the quality and the track record of excellence that has existed in the College of Nursing at MSU for decades," Tessman said.

For years, the nursing college operated out of space in Corbin Hall on the University of Montana's campus. Now, Bobcat nurses will have their own, dedicated MSU space right across the street from clinical partner Community Medical Center, which donated the land for the new building.

"We appreciate the partnership with the University of Montana and the support given to us over all those decades," said Missoula campus department head Tracey Koch. "As Bobcats in Grizzly territory, we somehow managed to co-exist for 50 years. Go figure."

Koch also commended the "bedside heroes" that work with MSU students in their clinical settings.

"You make such a difference in our students' education," she said. "Without your guidance and expertise, our students couldn't hone the skills they need to become ready for patient care."

Hollie Nagel, chief nursing officer of Community Medical Center, said the future of Montana healthcare depends on opportunities for nursing students to learn, grow and build meaningful careers.

"Community Medical Center is proud to have donated the land on which this new school stands," Nagel said. "We saw it as an investment in the future of our region, and we cannot imagine a better use of this land than as a place where the next generation of nurses will learn and grow."

The building features three large classrooms and a foundation skills room where students learn key tasks such as health assessment and insertion of IVs and catheters. It also includes a simulation center, where students practice care on computerized manikins, with three rooms dedicated to labor and delivery, pediatric care and adult care, each with a control room and three pre-brief/debrief rooms. Students said they appreciate the many spaces to study and connect with peers, including study rooms, study nooks, a break room and an outdoor terrace overlooking campus.

RaeAnn Loewen, a senior nursing student from Helena, noted that the simulation centers have enough space and are equipped to observe peers from multiple camera angles, which she said has resulted in better instruction and feedback.

In her remarks, nursing college dean Sarah Shannon thanked those who were involved in bringing the building to life, including the contractor, Jackson Construction, architecture firms Cushing Terrell and CO Architects, and MSU's Planning, Design and Construction team. She and Tessman also thanked former MSU President Waded Cruzado for the pivotal role she played in securing the donation.

Shannon announced that the simulation spaces in all five buildings would be named in honor of Anna Pearl Sherrick, the founding dean of MSU's nursing college. And, a $2.5 million donation from the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust equipped all the simulation labs with state-of-the-art technology, demonstrating the growth and continued outside support and investment in the college.

All together, the five new buildings will help increase the number of Bobcat nurses who graduate each year by around 100 students. That means across the five campuses, by 2030, MSU will graduate around 400 bachelor's-prepared nurses each year, about 70% of whom choose to stay in Montana to start their careers, Shannon said.

"Mark and Robyn wanted to impact and improve the lives of all Montanans and chose nursing as the best way to do that. Their gift remains the largest ever received by the Montana University system," Shannon said. "We are grateful for the help we've received to execute our vision: transform the lives and health of Montana's communities through cutting-edge education, the creation of new knowledge and providing meaningful service. The best is yet to come."