Marquette University is slated to unveil its expanded and newly renovated Direct Entry Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) Program site in Pleasant Prairie this week as part of its plan to educate 5,000 new nurses during the next decade.
The new site is double the size of the program’s original space in Pleasant Prairie and has triple the capacity for fundamentals training, with more than a dozen new hospital beds in the skills lab. The new site also has a larger simulation center with newly outfitted hospital and patient rooms, a simulated apartment for community care experiences and high tech, lifelike manikins.
Marquette has two MSN programs, one on-campus in Milwaukee and the other in Pleasant Prairie that opened in 2016.
The Milwaukee-based program is entirely in person and turns out about 56 MSN graduates each year. Pleasant Prairie’s hybrid program, in which students complete coursework online, but take exams, and participate in clinicals and labs, in-person, has two “program starts” each year, turning out 192 students annually.
All of Marquette’s MSN programs offer advanced nursing courses, immersive simulations, and clinical rotations at health care facilities in greater Milwaukee, southeast Wisconsin, and northeast Illinois, turning out masters-degree holding nurses within 19 to 21 months.
“The expanded Pleasant Prairie site will take the university’s nursing education to an even higher level, enabling students to pursue new opportunities, advanced practice certifications and step forward as a nursing leader,” said Dr. Karen Robinson, interim assistant dean of graduate studies in the university’s College of Nursing.
More space to learn
The new Pleasant Prairie site opened to students on Aug. 24. Located across the street from the former site, the new location at 8401 102nd St. is roughly 22,000 square feet and has twice the amount of simulation rooms and double the space for skilled labs. The previous location was about 8,500 square feet.
Marquette University’s expanded graduate nursing program comes amid a dire need for helping professionals, nationally and locally.
While the expansion of the Pleasant Prairie site won’t immediately lead to larger cohorts there, said Torin Gorgan, the program/s admission manager and site director, the expectation is to eventually increase the number of students able to attend the program.
Holly Nerone, who serves as the director of Marquette’s Direct Entry Master of Science in Nursing program, emphasized that the Pleasant Prairie site accommodates non-traditional nursing students, including those interested in changing careers, with a wide range of learning preferences and life experiences.
Upon completing the program, students must sit for the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX). Marquette students achieved an average 93% first-time pass rate on the NCLEX registered nurses exam in 2021, exceeding the national average of 82.48%, the university said.
Need for nurses
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the market demand for nurses will grow 9% through 2030, with approximately 194,500 openings each year, on average, over the next decade.
In Wisconsin, the shortage of nurses has reached “a tipping point,” with unprecedented vacancy rates in health care positions, according to a Wisconsin Hospital Association 2022 Workforce Report. Of particular concern is the number of unfilled nursing positions, which last year reached their highest level since 2005.
Despite the need, college and university nursing programs nationwide are turning interested students away. In its report on 2021-2022 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing noted that U.S. nursing schools turned away 91,938 qualified applications from undergraduate and graduate nursing programs in 2021 due to a lack of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space and clinical preceptors.
