This summer, San Antonio College started its second and final year of a nearly $350,000 grant agreement with the Greater San Antonio Healthcare Foundation, which continues to benefit the college and its Nursing Department, the largest registered nursing program in San Antonio.

The $348,458 grant has enabled San Antonio College to add four permanent positions to its Nursing Department, which graduates, on average, more than 190 students each year. These new positions - three full-time faculty members and one lab specialist - have helped the college combat the community's growing shortage of registered nurses working in the field today.

"Our students are assisted in developing their academic competencies, critical thinking skills, communication proficiencies, civic responsibilities, and global awareness," said Nursing Department Chairperson Lula Pelayo, Ph.D. "In this respect, the community benefits through an increased workforce, gaining qualified nurses who are prepared to care for patients in various settings."

By awarding grants to local colleges for their respective nursing programs, the Greater San Antonio Healthcare Foundation, a non-profit organization that pools its resources from local hospitals and health organizations, intends to slow San Antonio's nursing shortage, and perhaps even to reverse that trend, Foundation CEO William Rasco said.

He said the best way to rejuvenate the nursing industry is by contributing more funds to the institutions that produce the community's pool of well-trained, competent nurses. And, he added, these institutions made clear that they needed additional faculty and staff members in order to maintain or increase the number of graduating nursing students.

According to the agreement between the Foundation and San Antonio College, these four new positions will rely on grant funding for two years and then will be sustained by the college, which will make them permanent after the two-year grant expires.

"With the assistance of part-time adjunct faculty we had already increased enrollment to full capacity," Pelayo said. "These tenure track faculty enable us to maintain that enrollment, and the additional (lab specialist) allows us to serve adequately the increased student population."

Indeed, with four additional employees - not to mention new classroom and laboratory equipment and supplies - San Antonio College nursing graduates will continue to staff 60 percent of all San Antonio hospitals, Pelayo added.

San Antonio College's Nursing Department has been training students for a career in nursing for 37 years, since it began in 1967. The department offers Associate in Applied Science Degrees in both generic (pre-service) and LVN to AND (career-mobility) nursing programs, and it offers courses for licensed nurses seeking to refine or master new skills and developments in their field.

For more information, call Dr. Lula Pelayo, Nursing Department Chairperson, at (210) 733-2367.