Judy Abalos and Scott Thompson with Instructor Nancy Lischke

Arlene Hady was 16 when her mother's appendix burst, and what could have been an extremely distressful and confusing time for her was made much more comfortable by the nurses who cared for her mother.

"They were so sweet, caring and compassionate," remembers Arlene, "and they really made my mom feel good."

Now a third-year student at San Diego State University, Arlene is in her second semester of the nursing program. Due to her early experience, Arlene's goal is to become a nurse practitioner, providing the level of comfort and professionalism that made such a difference in her young life to her patients.

Arlene is just one of the 90 students who were admitted into the nursing major for fall 2005. However, this marks a dramatic increase, as over the past six years, enrollment in the School of Nursing has grown 70 percent. This growth was made possible by significant investments from our local healthcare providers through the Nurses Now Initiative. SDSU is the leading provider of the region's baccalaureate-prepared nurses, and our graduates consistently perform at the highest level in the state on the licensing examination.

Nearly all of the partners from Phase I and Phase II of the program have signed on for Nurses Now Initiative Phase III, including the Children's Hospital and Health Center, Kaiser Permanente, Paradise Valley Hospital, Scripps Health, Sharp Healthcare, Tri-City Medical Center, UCSD Medical Center and the Veterans Administration San Diego Health System. Nurses Now Phase III will continue to grow annual admissions. What's more, 84 percent of the School of Nursing's graduates join the local healthcare workforce-making Nurses Now a part of the local solution to our nursing shortage crisis.

The long-term goal for the School of Nursing is to establish an endowment to support the hiring of additional faculty, cover related costs, fund cross-border programs and nursing scholarships and build additional classrooms and clinical labs, and aims to do so through the support of its Nurses Now partners and private philanthropy. Arlene feels privileged to be one of the students benefiting from this collaboration, saying, "The program and its instructors are amazing-you can tell that they have so much experience and give me so much one-on-one attention that I know I'm really learning."