Health professions expansion necessitates new college

The provost and I are sending this special message to campus to bring you up to date on a significant initiative for Northern Arizona University that is progressing with great speed and great promise.

This is an opportunity for NAU to take the lead in training students for careers in the health professions. We are answering a call from the governor, the Legislature, the Arizona Board of Regents and the citizens of the state to step up and address a critical shortage of health-care professionals that is not being met by any other public institution in the state.

To be successful and turn this opportunity into a reality, we must mobilize our resources and faculty talents and position the university for this leadership role.

We are, therefore, recommending to the Arizona Board of Regents the establishment of a College of Nursing and Health Sciences, although a final name for the new college has not been determined. The planned expansion of our health professions programs and faculty necessitates that we move our schools of Nursing and Health Professions from the Consortium of Professional Schools and create this new college. We plan to grow our health professions faculty from 70 to 100 in the years to come.

As a result of these changes, the Consortium of Professional Schools will no longer be viable as a separate college with only the School of Hotel and Restaurant Management and School of Forestry remaining. And so, we also are recommending that HRM report to the College of Business Administration and that the School of Forestry report to the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences. Both deans recognize the practicality of aligning these schools with their respective colleges, as do the executive directors of HRM and Forestry and the dean of the Consortium of Professional Schools.

We expect these changes to become effective July 1.

It is important to note these are changes in reporting relationships only. The moves do not impact curricula, programs, accreditation or the "school" status of either HRM or Forestry. These are premier, first-class, nationally ranked programs and they will remain so.

We met with the faculty from the Consortium of Professional Schools last week to present our recommendations and to emphasize there will be no massive reorganizations, and everyone will come out a winner. We plan to make a final recommendation to ABOR this spring.

We are meeting with the Faculty Senate and the regents to discuss a national search for a dean of the new College of Nursing and Health Sciences. We want to extend our appreciation to David Patton, who will continue to serve as dean of the consortium during this important transition.

This is one of the most exciting programmatic opportunities for the university in a long time. The expansion of health professions programs serves an important public agenda for the state, and universities receive funding support when they assume public agendas.

We are looking to expand our physical therapy program in Flagstaff and Phoenix, bring our dental hygiene program to Phoenix and expand nursing in Tucson, Prescott and Yuma.

Future plans include joining the new University of Arizona College of Medicine in Phoenix. In her State of the State address, Gov. Janet Napolitano voiced her support for adding NAU's health professions programs to the medical school.

We hope to secure the necessary state funding to go the next step and create new programs in such areas as occupational therapy, physician assistant, biomedical sciences and clinical lab sciences.

The Arizona Board of Regents already has committed $2 million per year for the next five years to allow us to expand our existing programs. And we are requesting $4 million per year through 2011 from the Legislature to create the much-needed new programs.

There is a tremendous need for health-care professionals in a state whose population is burgeoning. This creates extraordinary opportunity for the university. It requires the university to be flexible and responsive to the emerging needs of the state. NAU stands ready to heed the call and become the institution for students who want a career in the health professions.