UNR’s Orvis School of Nursing has received a $3 million grant from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration to prepare nursing students to serve rural and frontier communities across Nevada, the university said in a news release.
The four-year award runs through August 2030.
It will establish the Nevada Rural Nurse Scholars Program and expand rural nursing education through the bachelor’s degree in nursing program at UNR’s Lake Tahoe campus.
The first cohort of 16 students will enter the Lake Tahoe campus track as Nevada Rural Nurse Scholars in January. They will take part in enhanced rural and community-based learning experiences designed to prepare nurses for practice in Nevada’s underserved communities.
About 96 students are expected to graduate during the grant period, helping strengthen the state’s rural healthcare workforce, the university said.
“Nevada’s rural communities don’t need more reports about the nursing shortage. They need nurses,” said Charles Yingling, dean of the Orvis School of Nursing. “This program was built around what those communities actually need from a nurse. Rural practice is demanding, rewarding and different from anything a traditional hospital clinical placement can prepare you for. We’re going to change that, starting at Lake Tahoe.”
The program will build on the existing nursing curriculum at the Lake Tahoe campus by giving students more opportunities to connect classroom learning with rural healthcare. The grant will also provide students in the program with a $1,000 housing and meal stipend each semester to help offset the cost of living at the campus.
Each student will complete at least 100 additional hours of experiential learning focused on rural health care settings. Students will learn alongside rural health care providers, engage with the communities those providers serve and gain a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities of rural practice.