With expectations of expanding its nursing education enrollment from 280 to 400, Fayetteville Technical Community College is making room for the new students.
On Thursday, FTCC dedicated its new Nursing Education & Simulation Center on campus. A ribbon-cutting was held for the two-story, 33,500-square-foot facility at 2340 Hull Road, a building that was previously home to the college’s early childhood education department.
A crowd of roughly 70 people gathered outside the front of the building.
Until January, nursing classes will continue at the Health Technologies Center where they share about five lab rooms with other health programs. The new building offers twice that space, with 32 hospital beds, and is solely for the use of the nursing programs.
Murtis Worth, the dean of FTCC’s nursing program, said she is delighted with the new facility
“For our students to be able to train there, we can make up utility rooms where we put our supplies (and) medication areas where we do not have to get interrupted,” Worth said.
Worth was among a large contingent of FTCC administrators, state lawmakers, representatives of the Golden LEAF Foundation and Cumberland Community Foundation, and nursing students on hand for the official launch of the facility.
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Students will begin using the Nursing Education & Simulation Center next month.
“It looks awesome,” said 41-year-old Casey Keyes, who expects to graduate from the program in December 2023. “I feel like instructors provided us with a great opportunity in the old building. And the new facility expands our learning and program.”
Keyes said she chose the FTCC nursing program because of financial reasons. Other schools, including Campbell University, Fayetteville State University and Methodist University, also offer nursing programs in the Fayetteville area.
“I do plan on trying to get my (bachelor’s degree), master’s degree and doctorate,” she said. “I plan on teaching.”
Lori Hauer, 40, will be in her last semester of nursing school. She anticipates graduating in May before pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing.
“It’s wonderful,” Hauer said of the reconfigured building. “I think it brings it up to a present-day hospital setting. It brings it up to a 21st-century-like hospital setting.”
Nursing has been an important part of FTCC since the college was founded in 1961, college officials say.
The school is dedicated to helping meet extraordinary challenges in health care training “frontline heroes” to meet the growing medical needs of the region, they say.
“We look forward to the impact this will have on our college and on the health of our community for generations to come,” said Sandy Ammons, executive director of the Foundation at Fayetteville Technical College. “This project would not have been possible without the support of foundations and the medical community.”
State Rep. Diane Wheatley, who represents the 43rd District that includes parts of Cumberland County, held the huge scissors to cut the ribbon during Thursday’s ceremony. She was in the second class of FTCC nursing students to graduate in the early 1970s.
“There were only two buildings that I remember: The nursing building and the mortuary school,” Wheatley recalled. “It has changed quite for the better. Now (the college is) spreading all over the county. … The nursing program, to me, has always been the shining star.”
Incoming FTCC President Mark Sorrells said Thursday was “really an exciting day.”
“This project started shortly after I came here,” Sorrells said, noting the contributions of retiring FTCC President Larry Keen and Mike Nagowski, CEO of Cape Fear Valley Health. “And now we’re seeing it all come to fruition. And it’s absolutely fantastic and true of what Cumberland County does: Come together when there’s a problem and find the solution and make it work.”
Michael Futch covers Fayetteville and education for CityView. He can be reached at mfutch@cityviewnc.com.
