The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga received an $8 million gift from the Kennedy Foundation for the new home of the UTC School of Nursing.
The Dorothy and Jim Kennedy Health Sciences Building will help increase the number of students in UTC's nursing program and meet the critical need for nurses in the community, UTC Chancellor Steve Angle said in a news release Friday.
The new building is named after the parents of the current Kennedy Foundation trustees and will become the first building on UTC's campus to be named after an alumna. It is the largest single gift in UTC School of Nursing history.
When complete, UTC officials said they hope the estimated 92,192-square-foot facility will help grow the nursing program's enrollment by 60%, they said last fall. It will also house a simulated lab space.
(READ MORE: UTC to invest in teacher education, consider use of artificial intelligence)
"It'll not only be helpful, it'll be incredibly impactful for the region around Chattanooga," UT System President Randy Boyd told the Chattanooga Times Free Press last October after the state gave official approval to proceed with the project. "We have a desperate need for more nurses, and this will give us the ability to create a lot more nurses."
The state budget last year provided $55.93 million for the building.
In a previous interview with the Times Free Press, Chris Smith, director of the UTC School of Nursing, said the university has more applicants than available spots and has had to turn away qualified applicants at a time when the demand for nurses is high.
Hospitals "are working toward getting adequate staffing back in all their facilities because nurses are the backbone of a hospital," Smith said in a February phone interview. "Other people come and go, but nurses are always there, and if nurses aren't there to take care of patients, hospitals have no reason to exist."
(READ MORE: UTC's new accelerated nursing program aims to help nursing shortage)
The health sciences building will sit across the street from the Kennedy Outpatient Center at Erlanger's Children's Hospital, along Chattanooga's Third and Fourth streets "medical corridor."
Contact Shannon Coan at scoan@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6396.