Fletcher awarded nearly $400,000 to expand nursing faculty

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The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation awarded Fletcher Technical Community College $380,000 to expand its nursing faculty. 


Fletcher’s nursing programs currently have the capacity for 64 students. With the funding provided by the foundation, the college said it will be able to hire additional faculty over the next three years, which will allow the programs to increase student enrollment by 20 students each year.

The check was presented at Fletcher’s Schriever campus on Tuesday and comes just over a month after Fletcher broke ground on its future 24,000-square foot nursing and workforce training building to grow its nursing and allied health programs. In May, Ochsner Health and Terrebonne General Health System each donated $1 million to expand the aforementioned programs. The Economic Development Authority also awarded $2.1 million to construct the new training facility.

Fletcher Chancellor Dr. Kristine Strickland said the college recognizes “how vital” such programs are to local communities. “So pre-COVID, we here at the college have had a number of conversations about not only the opportunity that we had to expand what we were doing in educating and training our nursing and allied health students but also that we were needed. We know just from statistics that more people who are over the age of 65 are alive and well and living longer but need that additional health care,” she said. 


 

“We also recognize that we have a large number — I think it’s over a million registered nurses — who are age 50 and above, meaning that in the next 10 to 15 years, they’ll be retiring. So, there’s a critical need,” she continued. 

 

Strickland also noted the need for health care in rural areas. “And that’s where Fletcher has such a critical role to play in stepping up and helping fill those workforce needs for our partners,” she said. 

 

Fletcher has over 400 students who’ve expressed interest in a nursing or allied health career, and over 95% of the college’s graduates stay in the region, according to Strickland. “They will be in your doctor’s offices, in your hospitals, in your health care facilities throughout this parish — helping care for all of us, for our family and for our community in general,” she said. 


 

Michael Tipton, President of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana Foundation, said colleges are training as many students as they can to enter the health care workforce but need resources and partners. 

 

“We know that having facilities and having faculty are critical to ensuring that we’re going to train the nurses of the future,” he said. “And we know that those folks are absolutely critical to being able to meet our health care needs today and for many years to come — not to mention that they are good-paying jobs that are going to be here for a while. And that provides opportunities for families and communities for many years down the road.”