After several years of planning, Folsom Hall, located at the corner of Hornet Drive and Folsom Boulevard, opened for use on Jan. 24. The 188,000-square-foot facility will house the Division of Nursing that will occupy the first two floors.

Prior to this semester, the nursing program was located at El Dorado Hall, occupying a total of 10,000 square feet. Now with 37,600 square feet of usable learning space &- three times the space of El Dorado Hall, faculty, staff and the 80 Sacramento State registered nursing candidates have the space they need to teach and learn the lifesaving techniques that will someday save lives.

Prior to the move, nursing professor Kitty Kelly, Doctor of Nursing Practice, said the program had limited space to teach but has more than enough now to accommodate students, faculty and staff.

“When the program was in El Dorado Hall, we had one classroom, two skills labs and not much room for anything else. In the newly renovated facility, faculty and students have at their disposal six classrooms &- including computer labs, two amphitheaters, five skills labs and six simulation labs,” Kelly said.

In 2007, University Enterprises, Inc. bought the former California State Teachers’ Retirement System building for $35.5 million. According to the CalSTRS website, the organization provides retirement related benefits and services to teachers in public schools and community colleges.

In a press release from the Sac State Office of Public Affairs in July 2007, it was not immediately clear as to how the new purchase would be used.

Matt Altier, executive director of UEI said buying eight acres near campus and constructing a similar-sized building would cost the university twice as much. He also said the prospect for such a buy was hard to pass up.

“This was just an outstanding, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We felt we had to pursue it if the price was right,” Altier said.

UEI purchased the building with the help from broker Bruce Hohenhaus of Collier’s International.

Junior nursing major Ashley Jones said the new hall has given her and other classmates the mobility that they once were deprived.

“We have a lot more space-because we are an 80-student class and it is more comfortable to work. We have more time in labs because of the new building,” Jones said. “And our schedule from last semester to now is more concrete than before.”

Jones said in prior semesters she and her classmates would receive last-minute emails detailing a classroom change or lab time change.

“With this new building, it will help the impaction of the program. It’s such a stressful program already,” Jones said.

Junior nursing major Ryan Bock said she was pleased with all the new equipment that she was getting to use while in lab practicing on a simulator patient that was deprived of oxygen.

“It is fantastic being here. All the equipment is new and up to date. The program just moved in from El Dorado Hall, which wasn’t quite technologically advanced,” Bock said. “So it’s really great being a first semester student in the program because we get a lot of hands on experience with brand new and up to date equipment.”

As a doctor of nursing practice, instructor Tanya Altmann feels more work will need to be done to provide students with a holistic learning environment and bring the entire department of health services under one roof.

“We are hoping to have physical therapy, audiology and all the other health sciences here so we can do a much better job at interdisciplinary instruction. But what the building as has allowed us to do is to teach with more space, equipment and use simulators that mimic reality,” Altmann said.

While teaching a class of 20 students how to properly install an external catheter on patients, Altmann said that in previous semesters most her focus was spent on setting up labs rather than on direct instruction.

“In our skills lab in the old building, I used to spend probably 10 to 20 hours, depending on the week, setting up the labs for the students. The time was spent moving beds and equipment because we had so little space,” Altmann said. “Now I can spend that 10 to 20 hours a week teaching students. Before it was the nursing faculty that had to do the setup, and now the labs are already set up for use.”

Kelly said with all these new areas of learning, the students now have the ability to exchange information more freely and gives students the chance to practice their skills and use those skills.

“It gives them the opportunity to discuss what they are learning and put it into practice, which is the most important part of this. Nursing is not like teaching history, math, and biology where you give students some facts and they give it back to you on a test,” Kelly said. “In nursing, we give students some concepts and then they have to take those concepts and put them into application at the bedside. So until they can apply those concepts, the information we give them is not worth much to them.”

Matt Harrington can be reached at [email protected]