Nursing groundbreaking changes face of campus

 by Karen Michelle Sarver
 published on Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Karen Michelle Sarver / THE STATE PRESS

GROUNDBREAKING: Construction crews work on the second phase of the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation at the Downtown Phoenix campus.

With the completion of the new building for the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism set for fall and last week's groundbreaking ceremony for a new building to add to the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation, ASU's Downtown Phoenix campus is rapidly expanding.

The five-story, 84,000-square-foot nursing building will provide five new classrooms for nursing students, said Julie Newberg, a Downtown Phoenix spokeswoman, in a press release.

The nursing college will occupy the building's first three floors. The fourth and fifth floors will house city of Phoenix offices and non-nursing ASU units.

The copper and glass facility will also include a 200-seat auditorium, a faculty office, student facilities and research space.

"Today we not only shovel the earth, we also plant the seeds of hope," said Regent Ernest Calderón, at the official welcome of the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation Phase II groundbreaking ceremony April 1. Other speakers included ASU President Michael Crow, Dean and Distinguished Foundation Professor in Nursing Bernadette Melnyk and Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon.

"Our goal isn't to be the largest, necessarily, but the most innovative," Melnyk said.

Cyrus Booth, a nursing junior, is one of approximately 1,850 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students currently enrolled in the college.

"I'm very excited," Booth said about the new building. "It's good to see expansion and growth. This will allow us to further improve and continue the development of the nursing college."

Melnyk informed those in attendance that "99,000 people die every year due to medical errors."

The mission of the College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation, she said, is to "improve the health of this city, this university, this state, as well as the nation."

Crow added, "Nursing is, at the end of the day, the core profession in health care."

Amidst the clatter of construction, Gordon thanked Phoenix citizens for supporting the project.

"This is about economic development," he said. He noted that the construction of the new building will create "hundreds and hundreds" of "great-paying" permanent jobs.

The new building, located at Third and Fillmore streets, is scheduled for completion by fall 2009.

Reach the reporter at: ksarver@asu.edu.