BOZEMAN—Montana State University’s Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing is getting new buildings on each of its five campuses, which are in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula, to further its mission of educating nurses to meet the state’s health care needs.
MSU broke ground in Great Falls last November, and groundbreaking ceremonies have been scheduled this spring in the other four cities. Kalispell’s nursing building broke ground April 23 at Logan Health. Now all buildings have begun construction.
“These new buildings will provide students with a better learning experience and allow us to enroll more students to help meet the nursing shortage in Montana,” said Sarah Shannon, dean of the nursing college.
Currently, the nursing college operates out of leased buildings in Billings, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula. The new, MSU-owned buildings, designed by the architecture firms Cushing Terrell and CO Architects, will feature modern classrooms and labs as well as study and break areas, according to Shannon.
Construction of the buildings will be covered by a portion of the historic $101 million philanthropic investment made to MSU in 2021 by Mark and Robyn Jones.
The land for four of the building sites was donated by health care partners — Billings Clinic and Intermountain Health St. Vincent Regional Hospital in Billings, Benefis Health System in Great Falls, Community Medical Center in Missoula and Logan Health in Kalispell. The Bozeman building will be constructed on the MSU campus.
MSU administrators, including Shannon and MSU President Waded Cruzado, attended each of the ceremonies and make remarks, as did representatives from each of the health care partners.
Each year more than 100 students graduate with a Bachelor of Nursing degree from MSU, ready to work as registered nurses. About 80% of those graduates stay in Montana to work in the state’s understaffed health care industry.
The Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing offers bachelors, accelerated bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral-level nursing education programs to produce nurses, nurse leaders, nurse educators and nurse practitioners for Montana. Great Falls was the first location where upper division, clinical nursing education was offered, followed by the establishment of the Billings nursing campus in 1939, Missoula campus in 1976, and Kalispell campus in 2002. While nursing majors have taken pre-requisite courses in Bozeman at MSU since 1937, upper division or clinical nursing education was first offered at the Bozeman campus in 2004.
Montana State is the largest producer of registered nurses in Montana and the sole provider of doctoral nurse practitioner education in the state. More information is available at montana.edu/nursing E5P
