Jul 24, 2007 - 04:03:49 CDT
GRAND FORKS (AP) - University of North Dakota administrators say a bus tour to western North Dakota last fall has led to plans for a petroleum engineering laboratory, nursing programs and a new education center.The administrators found people in small towns were not shy about telling them of the need for oil field engineers, health care workers and an easier route for students to come east to UND.
In the nine months since UND's administrative team returned to Grand Forks, Provost Greg Weisenstein said, the group has been acting on what it learned.
The UND School of Engineering and Mines is planning a petroleum engineering laboratory to train engineers for western oil fields. The College of Education has plans for a Center for Rural Education and Community, and the College of Nursing has won funding for programs to bring nurses to rural towns and to help rural nurses improve their education without leaving town, Weisenstein said.
Will Gosnold, the chairman of UND geology and geological engineering departments, said the petroleum engineering lab will need about $4 million to hire another full-time petroleum engineering professor and to buy equipment. Engineering Dean John Watson hopes to have the project under way before retiring in December, Gosnold said.
"This will fit in with our overall plan to increase options for petroleum engineering students," Gosnold said. "We're very interested in supporting that industry, and they're very interested in hiring people now. I've been getting phone calls all week from people looking for students to hire in the petroleum industry."
A federal Health Department grant will help cover much of the cost of a new three-year online degree program for registered nurses. The program can fit around a nurse's schedule, UND Nursing Dean Chandice Covington said. The clinical lab component can be done in the student's hometown, she said.
"These are students who are already registered nurses, but they're working at a more technical level," Covington said. "But if they leave home and go to Grand Forks or to Minnesota to go back to school, that area doesn't have that nurse for three years until they return. And many of them don't return at all."
The master's degree program will offer two specialties, one in gerontology and another in public community health, a mix of public health and home health care, Covington said.
The nursing college also received money to help recruit American Indian nurses, and plans to develop a DVD advertising UND's program and five others across the country, Covington said.
UND's College of Education and Human Development is planning a Center for Rural Education and Community that will study rural schools' curriculum and work with the schools, said Dean Dan Rice. Pending approval from the university system, Rice said, the center should be up and running by the end of the year.
Potential research topics include the best practices for newly consolidated rural school districts and community responses to the increased mental health care and counseling needs of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Weisenstein also said he has been working with Turtle Mountain Community College administrators to develop a dual enrollment program. And he is working on plans for the next year's bus tour in the Red River Valley.
"We still want to do a lot of listening on this tour," Weisenstein said of the trip planned for next October. "These are different communities, and we expect to find different needs. "
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