By fall 2025, nursing students at Emporia State will attend classes on campus instead of Newman Regional Health about a mile away.
“They’re kind of off on an island over there on the other side of town,” said vice president of infrastructure Cory Falldine.
Before Cora Miller Hall, adjacent to Newman, was used to educate students, it was a residence hall for those who were enrolled in Newman’s nursing program. Eventually, the space was offered to ESU to use “rent free” due to a Medicare grant that was received. This Medicare grant will run out by summer 2024, according to Falldine.
“Newman Regional Health has some plans for its own campus,” said director of media relations, Gwen Larson. “And so, they started talking to us about, could we move out of it and set up a time frame with us which is what opened the discussion to ‘What do we do? Where do we put this department?’ And we decided it was the best option to bring them onto campus.”
The idea for an updated classroom space for the nursing department was originally planned to be a renovated Central Morse Hall but, after some deliberation, the university decided to tear down Central Morse completely and rebuild from scratch, according to Larson.
“The difference is, are we renovating an old residence hall in the classroom space,” Larson said. “Or are we going to tear down a residential residence hall and build exactly what they need for their programs and their equipment?”
The estimated cost of the facility before deciding to demolish Central Morse was $8.5 million. Because of the change in plans to construct the building, that number will be increased by 15-20%, according to Falldine.
$5 million has been funded by the Federal American Rescue Plan (ARPA). More funding is planned to come from a corporation called the ESU Foundation through donations and the additional money comes from funds that ESU already has, according to Falldine.
“We also have other university operating funds that we can use for projects like this, that are coming from things like our educational building funds and other types of university specific funds,” Falldine said. “We have to be thoughtful when we do projects like this.”
The demolition process of Central Morse will begin this summer and construction is planned to begin spring of 2024. The reason for the long demolition time is an abatement process that must be done to remove a type of insulation known as asbestos which, when exposed to it, can cause lung cancer, according to Larson and Falldine.
Once the building is constructed, nursing students will be able to avoid traveling to get to their classes which allows them to be in closer proximity to resources.
“There’s so many more resources,” said senior nursing major Gracie Rausch. “I used to always go study at the library right there or the union… and also counseling is right there, and I get really stressed out.”
Architects working on the building have been in contact with educators in the nursing program and are asking for their feedback, according to Falldine.
“They (architects) went through the entire Cora Miller Hall facility and said they asked people what they like, but they’re just as interested in what they don’t like, and what doesn’t work for them,” Falldine said.
The building is planned to be finished by summer 2025 and for students to attend classes in the building by fall 2025.
“I’m excited to walk in there and think, ‘Wow, this is a nursing school,’” Falldine said. “As opposed to a residence hall that we turned into a nursing school.”
