The freshly renovated David A. Straz, Jr., Hall is the new home for the College of Nursing, and it aims to educate 5,000 more nurses in the next decade. The building was dedicated and blessed on Tuesday to celebrate the project, and all it will do for students.
The facility features flexible spaces for student growth, skills labs, simulation spaces and innovative classrooms all designed to enhance student growth and learning.
Staff, faculty, students, alumni and donors attended the event enjoying refreshments and taking tours of the building after the dedication.
The blessing emphasized the role the new facility has in fostering the growth of Marquette nurses.
“When we began this conversation [on Straz Hall] we had 600 nurses on campus doing the undergraduate program, but we understood if we could create a space like this, we can suddenly get to 1,000 students working, preparing to be nurses and then going out to serve Wisconsin and beyond,” Kimo Ah Yun, acting president, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said.
Ah Yun said the new space provides significantly more room for nurses at Marquette. The new facility increased space from 46,000 to 103,000 square feet and doubled the size of the center for clinical simulation. The increased space allows for expansion of class sizes to meet the demand of the nursing shortage.
“Many of you are likely aware of just how dire the nursing shortage is in this city, in Wisconsin and across the country. Marquette nursing has a responsibility to the profession to address this problem however we can. Straz Hall gives us the tools to meet that goal,” Jill Guttormson, dean of the College of Nursing, said.
Straz Hall has five floors that will operate as the tools to equip Marquette nurses for success.
The first floor features green spaces, atrium windows, a lactation room and The Helene Fuld Health Trust Center for Nursing Student Success which offers academic advising and mentors for students from underrepresented populations.
Just above on floors two and three, students have access to practical experience. The skills lab located on floor two is designed for practice in foundational health assessments and features a variety of medical equipment. The simulation and home health lab on floor three is focused on helping train students for anesthesia in a clinical setting and operating at households.
The fourth and fifth floors combine administrative spaces with student spaces and house the Minhas Research Collaboration Center, which works on research projects.
“Of course, what matters most is not that we are just graduating nurses. We are graduating Marquette nurses. The Marquette nurse is defined by five core actions: leading courageously, thinking critically, championing social justice, advocating for the vulnerable and caring for the whole person,” Guttormson said. “The Marquette nurse puts courage and care into action. They drive positive change for people, for communities and for the nursing profession.”
Marily Flores Carrillo, a senior in the College of Nursing, explained that she became a Marquette nurse because of the care she felt from her time at the Children’s Hospital in Wisconsin where she was treated for a tumor on her left cheek.
“Because of all the care that I have received from health and non-healthcare individuals, I’m standing here today,” Flores Carrillo said. “Becoming a nurse has been a dream of mine for a very long time.”
Guttormson said that when students commit to Marquette, the university commits to them, and Straz Hall serves as a brick-and-mortar expression of that commitment.
Ah Yun also shared what he thinks makes Marquette nurses by recalling a conversation with the late president, Michael Lovell.
“When [Lovell] was going through his cancer journey, he would always say, ‘I know the difference between a Marquette nurse and a non-Marquette nurse, and that’s one of the ways that I think we know we’re doing it right.’ Why wouldn’t we want to have a multiplier effect [for future nurses] with Straz Hall?” Ah Yun said.
To conclude the event, Rev. Ryan Duns, S.J. did a prayer to call for blessing on Straz Hall and Marquette nurses.
“May God, the divine caregiver, bless this space, those who study and work here, and all who seek to heal in the spirit mercy and love, may they find strength in their vocation, wisdom, in their practice and joy in their service to others. We ask all this in the name of Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Duns said.
Duns said he is excited to think of what the future will look like for those who will feel the “healing touch” of a Marquette nurse.
This story was written by Gabriel Mannion. He can be reached at [email protected].
