OCU Expands its Nursing School

Nurses are in high demand these days and Oklahoma City University is helping to fill the shortage.

Wednesday, October 28th 2009, 4:33 pm

By: News 9


By Jennifer Pierce, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Nurses are in high demand these days and Oklahoma City University is helping to fill the shortage.

OCU is expanding its nursing school, in more ways than one. The nursing students and Oklahoma City University staff have plenty to celebrate.

They're breaking ground on a 50,000 square foot expansion of the school. It's part of OCU's solution to a growing problem in the medical field.

"The nursing shortage is very severe and we're trying to do our part to promote more people going into nursing," Dean Marvel Williams said.

Part of that is by offering advancement programs and special scholarships.

"We have received two grants now from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to facilitate moving more men into nursing," said Williams. "One of the possible solutions to the nursing shortage is to encourage more men to consider it as a career."

Nathan Silva is one of the scholarship students. He joins the dozens of other men to enter what has mostly been a female dominated profession.

"In my classes, I think it's about 50-50 men to women," Silva said.

He also took up nursing school because of job security once he graduates.

The recession is making the nursing profession a very attractive field these days. That's because the with the shortage there are plenty of job openings.

"The department of labor tells us that nursing is going to remain the number one top hot career at least through 2014," Williamson said.

And with more classrooms and labs the school can train more students to fill those vacancies.

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