Towson University (MD) to expand program

[cougarnurse]

For those interested: Maryland: Towson University expanding nursing program

Towson (Md.) University has received a $1.1 million grant that will enable it to expand its nursing program at the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown for the 2009-10 academic year.

“The nursing program has been rapidly growing since its start in the fall of 2006,” Judy Breitenbach, Towson nursing programs director at USM-H, said in an e-mailed press release. “The grant money will allow us to increase undergraduate enrollment during the spring semester.”

Twenty-one students have been admitted to the undergraduate program for the fall. An additional 16 students will be admitted in the spring of 2010, Breitenbach said.

An additional faculty member was hired in August and another will be hired in the spring, she said.

The grant money is from the Who Will Care? program, a fundraising initiative aimed at doubling the number of nursing graduates in Maryland. The first round of Who Will Care? funds will be used to provide additional operating dollars to nursing schools to add faculty, students and clinical technology.

Statewide, the initial grants will increase the number of nurses graduating in Maryland by 300 and add 20 faculty positions, according to the release.

In addition to expanding Towson’s nursing program at USM-H, funds will be used to develop and implement a comprehensive Nursing Retention and Success Program.

For more information about the program, call Brook Necker, admissions and retention coordinator for the Towson nursing program, at 410-704-4170, send an e-mail to bnecker@towson.edu or go to www.towson.edu/nursing/hagerstown.asp.