COLUMBIA, Mo. — University of Missouri-Columbia officials on Friday broke ground on a new $30 million Sinclair School of Nursing facility, to be completed by spring 2022.
The new facility, on the same site as the now-demolished previous school of nursing building, will be donor-funded, officials said. The University of Missouri System's Board of Curators approved the project in April 2019.
"Nursing students are now entering very complex environments, and this new facility will be equipped to help foster different types of learning," Sarah Thompson, dean of the school of nursing, said in a statement. "We are excited to soon have the space to increase our class sizes and help do our part to meet the nursing shortage in Missouri and the country as a whole."
According to a report from the Missouri Hospital Association, the nursing vacancy rate in St. Louis-area hospitals is 10.4% and is expected to rise. Mizzou officials said there will be more nursing jobs available through 2022 than any other profession in the country, citing the American Nurses Association.
Mizzou is the second school in the UM System to announce a nursing school project. The University of Missouri-St. Louis last week also announced it has kicked off construction on phase 1 of a $7 million renovation and expansion of its Nursing Learning Resource and Simulation Center.
Once completed, the Nursing Learning Resource and Simulation Center will have 21,000 square feet of space with 11 simulation rooms — up from the current five rooms — and will help UMSL grow the number of pre-licensure BSN students it graduates by 20% annually. The expansion is adding 5,000 square feet to the building and will include renovations of the existing skills lab in Seton Hall.
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