University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College receives two grants for nearly $6 million to expand, grow nursing program across campuses
NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark.- Two grants are coming together to help the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College fight the decreasing number of nurses in the United States.
“The first grant that we received recently was from the Department of Labor, and it is a consortium grant,” University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College Chancellor, Doctor Summer DeProw, said.
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The nursing program was awarded $5,736,624 from the United States Department of Labor to expand nursing education to Arkansas. The Arkansas Community Colleges Association and New Growth secured the grant.
According to a press release for UA-PTC, “The grant will provide funds for additional nursing faculty, student success coaches, grant administrators, and institutional research staff.”
The U.S. Department of Labor granted $65 million to 16 colleges in 14 states, and UA-PTC was one of them.
The second grant was from the Windgate Foundation.
“It’s a $93,000 grant that is solely for equipment, and that equipment is going to help everyone in the practical nursing program as well as our CNA program, but predominantly the licensed practical nurse,” DeProw said.
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The UA-PTC hopes to help educate providers on all the pathways of care.
“One, we want to expand and bring in more students in with certified nursing, we want to bring in more students in the EMT, and then we are going to be able to have a stronger pipeline of students into the license practical nursing program,” DeProw said.
“COVID put such a pressure on Allied health, particularly nurses that many of them don’t want to stay with the profession,” Deprow said. “There’s a huge amount of turnover; there’s anticipated that millions of nurses are going to either retire or just leave the profession altogether, but at the same time, we have more illness.”
Both grants will help benefit all locations of the Pulaski Technical College with the hopes of creating more nurses for all.
“The intent is to not only grow the program but make sure they all graduate at the end,” DeProw said.
From transforming vacant bookstores into beautiful offices and classrooms, they are making strides to provide more education.
“We now have technology that talks to the technology here at the north Little Rock campus, so if we needed one instructor to cover two sets of classes, one south simultaneously with one at North, he or she can actually do that from either location and lecture and do all kinds of demonstrations,” DeProw said.
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Understanding and providing current-day skills for nurses in the program is the number one priority, along with their student’s success.
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