A section of the former Shop ‘n Save grocery store on Springfield’s north end will be used to train Illinois State University nursing students beginning in August 2023.
Almost 10,000 square feet of the property at 200 North Grand Ave. W. will be renovated through a partnership between Memorial Health and the Mennonite College of Nursing at ISU.
Springfield-based Memorial Health, the not-for-profit system that operates Springfield Memorial Hospital and hospitals in Decatur, Jacksonville, Taylorville and Lincoln, will pay for $1.6 million in renovations at the North Grand property as part of $6 million in total donations to the Mennonite program over the next 10 years.
The donations will cover the vast majority of the Normal-based nursing program’s cost to expand enrollment in its bachelor’s program in nursing by 48 students per year, educate those students in Springfield and hire faculty for the satellite campus, Memorial and Mennonite officials said.
The first 48 students will begin their nursing education as ISU juniors at the site, where they will participate in classroom work and other learning experiences. In fall 2024, 48 more juniors will be added when the first 48 become seniors, according to Judy Neubrander, dean of the Mennonite program.
ISU graduates about 170 students each year who are eligible to take national exams to become registered nurses, so the addition of 48 more slots will expand the program by 28%.
Opening the Springfield site for ISU is part of Memorial’s efforts to increase the supply of registered nurses amid a statewide and nationwide nursing shortage, said Marsha Prater, a Memorial Health senior vice president and chief nursing officer.
“Part of our strategy as an organization is to ensure that we have a strong pipeline of nurses for the future for the citizens of central Illinois,” she told Illinois Times. “And nurses tend to work and take their first job close to the areas in which they’ve done their clinical experiences.”
Nursing students who complete the junior and senior years of their ISU bachelor’s degrees in Springfield won’t be required to get jobs at Memorial hospitals or outpatient settings. But many of them likely will choose to work for Memorial, which already employs more than 2,500 RNs systemwide, Prater said.
“It is the absolute best opportunity to recruit good nurses – to have them in there as students and show them the kind of learning environment, the kind of patient care and nursing environment, that they would be joining,” she said.
Memorial will lease 9,900 square feet in the 44,000-square-foot former Shop ‘n Save building from the owner, Peoria-based Advanced Medical Transport, not-for-profit parent of Medics First. Memorial then will sublease the space to ISU, according to Kevin England, Memorial senior vice president and chief administrative officer.
ISU’s Board of Trustees approved the sublease agreement at its Aug. 15 board meeting.
Students in the ISU nursing program currently take nursing classes their junior and senior years in Normal and receive on-the-job, clinical training at hospitals and in other health care settings throughout central Illinois. The clinical sites include Springfield Memorial Hospital and hospitals in Bloomington-Normal and Peoria.
Springfield is home to several nursing education programs, including St. John’s College of Nursing and programs on the campuses of Lincoln Land Community College and University of Illinois Springfield.
Memorial in 2020 donated $6.1 million to LLCC to help expand the number of slots in the nursing program and open the new LLCC Nursing Education Center. The health system also devoted more than $1 million in a partnership with UIS and the University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing to launch a UIC training program in 2015 for future RNs on the UIS campus.
Memorial Health hospitals provide clinical experiences for 400 to 500 nursing students at a time from eight different academic programs in the region, Prater said.
About 100 of those students travel each day from ISU’s program in Normal, Prater said. The ISU students also receive clinical training in other communities.
When the Springfield-based program begins, 48 more ISU nursing students in each class will be added to the students from the region receiving clinical training at Memorial sites. But Prater said the Springfield-based ISU students will receive all their clinical training at Memorial facilities, including the Memorial Learning Center, and will live in the Springfield area.
Neubrander said she and other ISU officials are thrilled to be partnering with Memorial on a regional nursing campus that is the first of its kind for Mennonite.
“It’s a super-generous gift to get this going and to maintain it,” she said.
ISU plans to maintain the same level of quality instruction at the Springfield site, she said, noting that 95% to 96% of Mennonite graduates pass the national RN exam on the first try. The comparable Illinois and national pass rates are 82%, she said.
Neubrander said she expects many ISU students from the Springfield area to find the Springfield site attractive and convenient for their nursing education.
She said she hopes many of the new nursing students wanting part-time jobs during their training will be able to work for Memorial as nursing technicians.
The Mennonite expansion will make it slightly easier for central Illinois students to secure a slot in a nursing program, Neubrander said. ISU currently is able to admit only 10% of applicants to its nursing program, she said.
“These are two great organizations partnering for the future of nursing,” she said.
Dean Olsen is a senior staff writer for Illinois Times. He can be reached at dolsen@illinoistimes.com, 217-679-7810 or twitter.com/DeanOlsenIT.
Editor’s note: Details of Memorial Health’s total donation to Mennonite College of Nursing were clarified after the initial version of this story was published online.
This article appears in Green growth.
Not that I have anything against the healthcare field, however, I MUST emphasize the fact that the North End is losing so much business, including Shop and Save, which served many low-income people, including at the Rev. H.M. Hildebrandt Hi-Rise, 1151 N. Eighth, as well as many other, low-income people,
I would suggest that what the north end NEEDS to do is attract more GROCERY SHOPPING. Springfield needs to make sure that ALL citizens have easy access to AFFORDABLE grocery shopping.
Until the need, for AFFORDABLE grocery shopping, is met, the north end will continue to LOSE.