New College of Nursing building to enhance academic initiatives

January 19, 2007 is a date that the faculty and staff of the College of Nursing won’t soon forget. It is the day they first saw the rendering of the future home of the College of Nursing. The College and its planning committee members hosted a presentation, introduced by Connelly Endowed Dean and Professor M. Louise Fitzpatrick, about the new facility for its faculty, staff, selected student leaders and University administrators.

The College, a National League for Nursing Center of Excellence in Nursing Education, is poised for a new home to reflect its national and international reputation. The state-of-the-art facility is scheduled to be ready in summer 2008 to educate the next generation of nurses, and support scholarship and the technology-driven clinical simulation labs.

The site, on the former softball field near the main gate and next to the Health Services Building, brings the College onto the central campus. Since 1972 the College has made its home in St. Mary’s Hall and before that in Austin and St. Clare Halls and St. Clare Annex.  Site preparation began January 8 with construction slated to start March 1.

Various members of the planning committee talked about the design process and elements of the new facility. Those presenting included from the University Facilities Management Office engineers John Cacciola, director of engineering and construction and Marilou Smith, project manager; from Richter Cornbrooks Gribble Inc., Architects Jonathan Fishman, principal in charge; and from construction management firm Torcon, Inc. John DeFazio, project executive, Amy Nowak, project manager and Mike O’Neill, superintendent. College representatives who were present and involved in planning included Associate Dean Dr. Lesley Perry, Assistant Dean for Administration Rose O’Driscoll, and Assistant Professor Dr. Marycarol McGovern who chairs the College’s Facilities Committee.

The 75,500 square feet of the new building, designed with faculty and staff input, will house on its ground floor six labs for skills, health assessment, adult health, maternal/child health, anesthesia, and critical care  clinical simulation. There will also be a simulated nurses’ station, and observation and testing labs for simulations using “standardized patients,” actors who follow scripted scenarios to mimic real patient situations. The role of technology and simulations in student learning is vital. Nursing students are exposed to a variety of clinical situations, such as a post-operative patient whose condition is deteriorating, a woman in labor, a child with an asthma attack, or a patient with a blood transfusion reaction. In each, the students learn in the lab setting how to recognize signs and symptoms, assess the patient, make critical judgments about appropriate nursing actions and then evaluate their outcomes. They then can apply this knowledge in the hospital, clinic or home setting when caring for actual patients. Nurse practitioner students will also use these facilities as they develop their advanced practice role.

The first floor has a lobby, a 200-seat auditorium and 200-seat lecture hall, a space for prayer and reflection, as well as space for the Dean’s Suite and for global health studies. The second floor houses a commons and Holy Grounds, plus classrooms, offices, a Reading and Historical Collection Room, and space for the Center for Nursing Research, student organizations and international student activities. Office space for program directors, faculty and staff is on the third floor. A courtyard will be designed in the front of the environmentally-friendly building. Its LEED certificate is expected in February.

University President Peter M. Donohue, OSA, says the building will “bring people together into an academically intellectual center” where there can be growth of mind, heart and soul. Both he and Dean Fitzpatrick acknowledged that the College is opening the doors to the entire campus. The building has be designed to accommodate University events, for instance in its lobby or auditorium, or outside on its lawn with space for a tent. The first event will be a ceremonial groundbreaking at the site on April 10 at 12:15 p.m.

"We are building on success,” explains Dean Fitzpatrick. “The College has earned an excellent reputation over its 54 history. This facility will do much to advance its future."  

University community celebrates groundbreaking for new College of Nursing facility

VILLANOVA, Pa., April 12, 2007 — Fifty-four years after its founding, the College of Nursing celebrated a historic milestone on April 10 – the groundbreaking ceremony for its new state-of-the-art facility. The midday ceremony, at the site near the main gate, drew a crowd of several hundred administrators, trustees, faculty, staff, alumni, students, and supporters from across the University. The pep rally atmosphere was fostered by music from the Villanova Band and the Wildcat mascot who joined the audience in rejoicing in the advancement of the College’s future and that of nursing and nursing education.

Cheered on by the Wildcat sporting a hard hat, John Drosdick,
chairman of the University Board of Trustees; Very Rev.
Donald Reilly, O.S.A., prior provincial of St. Thomas Province;
M. Louise Fitzpatrick, Connelly Endowed Dean, and University
President Rev. Peter Donohue, O.S.A. participated in the
ceremonial groundbreaking for the new College of Nursing
facility on April 10.

The $32 million, 75,500 sq. ft. environmentally-friendly building is slated to open in summer 2008. It is designed by the Baltimore, Md., architectural firm of Richter Cornbrooks Gribble, Inc. Torcon, Inc., headquartered in Red Bank, N.J., is in charge of the project's construction management. “This facility is not about brick and mortar,” explained Connelly Endowed Dean M. Louise Fitzpatrick, Ed.D., R.N., FAAN during her remarks. “…It is about what will happen inside—fostering the intellectual climate and continuing to cultivate a mature, energetic professional school with a commitment to the preparation of clinical experts and leaders for health care within the context of a values-driven liberal arts education.”

The building is designed to provide a space that stimulates learning and inquiry, as noted during the invocation by Rev. Kail Ellis, O.S.A., dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. It is not only for nursing students and faculty, but for the entire University community, explained Villanova’s President Rev. Peter M. Donohue, O.S.A. saying “The building will be open to all students at Villanova.” The facility includes areas for public events and student activities, as well as space for nursing research and global health studies.

Students in the audience join Very Rev. Donald Reilly, OSA, in blessing the site.

In addition to classrooms, seminar rooms and an auditorium and lecture hall, each with 200 seats, the new building will house future-oriented clinical simulations labs for health assessment, adult health, maternal/child health, anesthesia and critical care nursing. It will also contain observation and testing labs for simulations using “standardized patients,” actors who follow scripted scenarios to mimic real patient situations. The role of technology and simulations in student learning is vital. Nursing students are exposed to a variety of clinical situations, such as a post-operative patient whose condition is deteriorating, a woman in labor, a child with an asthma attack, or a patient with a blood transfusion reaction. In each, the students learn in the lab setting how to recognize signs and symptoms, assess the patient, make critical judgments about appropriate nursing actions and then evaluate their outcomes. They then can apply this knowledge in the hospital, clinic or home setting when caring for actual patients. Nurse practitioner students will also use these facilities as they develop their advanced practice role.

The groundbreaking ceremony was moderated by sophomore Lyndsay Escajeda of Unionville, Conn., a presidential scholar who will be among the first class to “graduate from” the new building in 2009. She shared her excitement about the new facility as did John Drosdick, chairman of the University Board of Trustees who applauded the quality of the College’s graduates. In blessing the site, Very Rev. Donald Reilly, O.S.A., prior provincial of the St. Thomas Province, extended the congratulations of Augustinians around the world and noted that “as we turn the ground, we turn a new page in our history as part of our healing ministry to one another.”

After the ceremonial groundbreaking, Dean Fitzpatrick acknowledged the efforts of those who built the programs and reputation of the College, a National League for Nursing Center of Excellence in Nursing Education. She also gratefully acknowledged the administrators, alumni, friends and partners, including the Connelly Foundation, who have supported the College in various ways over the last half-century. She described what the new facility will enable the College to do, “It is about using technology to better the human condition and advocacy for the marginalized and poor. It is about providing students with global perspectives about health and illness and helping transform the roles that nurses must play in shaping policies as well as delivering services that address healing and comforting the ills of a complex multicultural society…It is about ethical decision-making in health care and educating new generations of nurses rooted in a faith tradition… It is about the synergy between compassion and competence and seeing God in every human being for whom we provide care."

Dean Fitzpatrick’s sights are on the days ahead, “[The building] will help to widen our lens as we vision and create a future full of new possibilities that transform minds and hearts.” The sees a clear role for the nursing students, “Today…Villanova takes another leap forward in advancing its future as well as that of its College of Nursing…and you, our students, are that future.”