The goal of the program is to train and retain qualified nurses to stay and work in West Virginia amid an ongoing nursing shortage.
Pierpont Community and Technical College has recently been awarded a grant in the amount of $477,000 from the state of West Virginia’s Nursing Workforce Expansion Program. The program first launched three years ago and has since helped increase the number of nurses in the state by nearly 25%.
According to an article on Pierpont Community and Technical College’s website, Amy Cunningham, who is the dean of the School of Health Sciences, was quoted as saying of the improvements the grant will allow the school to make, “This crucial funding will allow us to increase enrollment capacity, enhance our simulation laboratories with state-of-the-art equipment and help address the critical nursing shortage in our region.”
The grant funding will give the school the opportunity to make several enhancements that will help bolster enrollment and accommodate the additional students coming into the nursing program. The school will hire a new full time faculty member and several adjunct faculty members which will bring the program’s capacity up to 52 students with the coming Fall 2025 semester. In addition to hiring new faculty members, the grant will also allow for the purchasing of new simulation manikins and make renovations to the LPN lab.
A total of 23 grants were awarded this year as part of West Virginia’s Nursing Workforce Expansion Program.
For more information about Pierpont Community and Technical College, visit the school’s website.