From the Dean: Team Training for North Dakota
It’s been a whirlwind few months since I took the reins as Dean of North Dakota’s only medical school, and – wow – am I impressed with this campus and this state. I’ve been telling all of my colleagues and friends about the amazing thing we have going on here in North Dakota.
Coming in during a legislative year has meant a number of trips to Bismarck for me already – with more to come – to present to the Legislative Assembly on all of the great work the students, staff, and faculty across the state do for North Dakota’s health and healthcare system.
One legislative topic that might have caught your eye was our discussion of expanding the main School of Medicine & Health Sciences (SMHS) building in Grand Forks with a health professions addition. In January, a bipartisan group of legislators introduced a bill regarding construction of a three-story, 95,000-square-foot addition to the SMHS.
Whatever the fate of this particular bill, we’re discussing the value proposition of this addition with legislators – and our alumni and donors – for two primary reasons:
First, fire marshals at the City of Grand Forks told UND that Columbia Hall – the former SMHS building which still houses many of our research faculty and graduate students – must be either vacated and demolished by 2026 or the building will require an extensive overhaul to continue using, at a cost of more than $48 million. In either case, we’ll soon be losing a significant amount of laboratory space for our massive research programs into cancer, Alzheimer’s, Lyme disease, influenza, and other maladies affecting North Dakotans every day. Relocating even a fraction of these researchers to the main SMHS building on a permanent basis will mean that our School will be completely out of space. In other words, we will have zero room to grow our programs and class sizes to meet North Dakota’s growing healthcare needs as the state’s population grows.
Second, the facility housing UND’s exceptional College of Nursing & Professional Disciplines (CNPD), whose students already train alongside SMHS students, requires nearly $13 million in upgrades in the next few years to remain viable for training the nurses, social workers, and dietitians who play a vital role in our state’s healthcare system.
One answer to both of these challenges that emerged from the SMHS Advisory Council and CNPD Dean Dr. Maridee Shogren is the addition to the SMHS building noted above. This solution would allow us to offer our students stunning interprofessional education opportunities across all health programs in CNPD and SMHS. To clarify, under the proposal in question the nursing college would remain its own college: it would simply be connected to the SMHS building, allowing our colleges’ students and faculty to work together more easily, much in the way doctors, nurses, therapists, dietitians, medical lab scientists, and social workers all partner on patient care in hospitals and clinics across our state every day.
And because at least $40 million of the project’s approximately $95 million cost would be provided by donors to the University, the final cost of the new space that streamlines and improves health education at UND would actually be less than the combined cost of remodeling the two legacy buildings in question.
So, stay tuned.
I can’t tell you how much fun I’ve been having in North Dakota. I learned very quickly after arriving here that “North Dakota nice” is really a thing – everyone has been so genuinely kind and helpful to me. This place truly is a hidden gem, and I’m looking forward to doing my part to help make it even better.
Marjorie R. Jenkins, M.D., M.Ed.H.P., FACP
Vice President for Health Affairs, UND
Dean, School of Medicine & Health Sciences
