Transforming McLeod Hall - School of Nursing - University of Virginia

Moving Forward
Stepping into the Future
Plans for the third floor include enhancing and expanding the
School’s Clinical Simulation Learning Center, which has become a
core part of the nursing curriculum. Changes planned for the center
include incorporation of new high-fidelity simulation technologies,
women’s health and pediatric simulation units, a virtual reality
lab, and an operating suite that will encompass a scrub area for
simulation of general operations, Caesarian sections, and other
invasive procedures. The center will also include procedure labs that
will simulate acute care inpatient bed units, as well as a hospital
nurses’ station and isolation room.
The second floor will house the School’s information
technology department, several classrooms, and the existing
resilience room, which is equipped for yoga, meditation, and other
activities. Upgrading technology resources is essential to meet the
21st-century needs of a successful and competitive nursing school.
The resilience area reflects a commitment to health and wellness
aimed at creating better work-life balance and retention within the
nursing profession.
The newly renovated
Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry
In McLeod Hall
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
1 p.m. (following the noon Nursing History Forum)
Open to the public.
For more information, e-mail nurs-hxc@virginia.edu
or call (434) 924-0083.
McLeod construction,1971, from the Center for Nursing Historical
Inquiry collection
When the renovation is complete, McLeod Hall will be equal to
the demands being placed upon it. Improvements to the building
will help accelerate research and increase collaboration among
the School’s faculty through contiguous and shared research and
education space. It will also provide space for partnering with visiting
faculty.
“We’ve designed conference rooms on every floor to be shared
by faculty and centers,” Merwin says. “The conference rooms will be
fully equipped with up-to-date equipment that will allow faculty to
quickly share research data with one another.”
Close proximity also fosters opportunity. Recently, Merwin and
another faculty member affiliated with the Center for the Study of
Complementary and Alternative Therapies wrote and submitted an
NIH grant as co-principal investigators. According to Merwin: “That
collaboration wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t seen each other
daily. My office is on one side of the hall, and the center is on the
other. Our close proximity allowed this opportunity to take place.”
McLeod renovations will support approximately $12.8 million
in currently funded research, and around $5.8 million in potential
funding for studies that are currently in review. By enabling increased
collaboration and efficiency, the new space is also expected to help
faculty attract future research funding. And it will help the School
become more competitive in attracting and retaining top-notch
nursing faculty who are actively engaged in research.
In addition, a research-oriented facility with state-of-theart
computer capabilities will provide a better environment for
educating the next generation of nursing researchers. This is true in
the PhD and NIH-funded postdoctoral research programs, as well as
for a number of undergraduates who have recently been encouraged
to participate in the School’s research activities. Last summer, 15
undergraduate students worked as research interns with School of
Nursing faculty.
“Because we don’t have enough spaces equipped with
computers, we had 12 of these interns working out of one
classroom,” Merwin recalls. “In the future, we could enhance this
experience for them if we had more space in the centers for research
assistants and undergraduate students.”
“These days, faculty and students expect schools to have the
most current technology in place,” Merwin says. “As we compete
with the other top schools for the best graduate students, technology
becomes a key factor. These students look critically at the physical
space of any school they are considering. Outstanding curriculum
and excellent faculty are important to their choice of school, but so is
an outstanding research setting.”
“Across the board, the renovation of McLeod Hall will raise the
level of our research enterprise to a level commensurate with the
nation’s top nursing schools,” concludes Dean Fontaine. “We will
create a building that reflects the research stature of our faculty and
helps us attract outstanding students. The building we have today is
not sufficient for our research, for studying and evaluating clinical
simulation, or for meeting our goals in education and service.”
• 10 Virginia Legacy Fall 2010