Manchester Magazine manchester magazine fall 2019 for joomag | Page 11

MU | F e a t u r e s
Soon, aspiring nurses will have one more
reason to stay, and prospective students will
have more reasons to choose Manchester in
the first place.
In January, the board gave Johnson the green
light to develop a Bachelor of Science in
Nursing (BSN) program. The process is
rigorous and requires approval first from
the Indiana Board of Nursing and then
the Higher Learning Commission before
Manchester can even begin marketing the
program.
To help her prepare for that approval,
Johnson hired Beth Schultz from Anderson
University in Greenville, S.C., as nursing
director and Nancy Schroeder from Ohio
Northern University as MU’s first nursing
faculty member. The two are working in
earnest to develop a curriculum, laboratory
spaces and other plans.
Johnson envisions launching three nursing
programs in the next several years. The first
would be an accelerated BSN for people who
already have bachelor’s degrees in another
field. Manchester would give them credit
for about half of their coursework and they
would focus on actual nursing courses and
clinical experiences.
The second program, says Johnson, will be
a traditional four-year BSN for high school
graduates who will spend the first two years in
North Manchester and the second two years
in Fort Wayne.
The third program likely will be an RN-to-
BSN program for registered nurses, most of
whom attended community colleges but want
a bachelor’s degree. Increasingly, says Johnson,
employers want nurses with bachelor’s
degrees.
For Johnson, one of the most exciting aspects
of developing Manchester’s program is its
expanding relationship with Parkview Health,
the region’s largest employer and not-for-
profit health care provider. Parkview Health
and Manchester have reached an agreement
that will allow the University to lease part
of the basement of the Parkview Mirro
Center for Research and Innovation for a
nursing laboratory and classroom. The Mirro
Center is on the campus of Parkview North
hospital, which is next door to Manchester’s
Fort Wayne campus.
Once developed, the lab will feature a mock
hospital with four to six beds. The space
will provide what Johnson calls “basic
training for nurses” to learn skills such as
making beds, giving injections and taking
blood pressure. On the North Manchester
campus, students also will have use of a new
Anatomage table, a technologically advanced
system that allows students to visualize
anatomy exactly as they would on a cadaver.
The Anatomage is a generous gift from
Megan Hite (above) works in a chemistry lab on the North
Manchester campus. At top, a closer look at an Anatomage.
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