New UML Facility Will Keep Students on Cutting Edge

By Lyle Moran, Lowell Sun

LOWELL -- The powerful wind gusts could not displace the broad smile on Djawn Scott's face at yesterday's groundbreaking ceremony for UMass Lowell's four-story Health and Social Sciences building, set to open in 2013.

The UMass Lowell master's of gerontology student and Lowell native coordinates the university's Bring Diversity to Nursing program, which works to boost the number of minority and economically disadvantaged nurses coming out of the Merrimack Valley through recruiting and supporting them if they decide to enroll at UMass Lowell.

Scott, who spends 18 hours a week mentoring and counseling some of the 36 students who are part of the program, believes the building's new simulation labs for nurses will only amplify her efforts to increase the ranks of minorities in the nursing world. In turn, these nurses will help local hospitals provide better care to patients of all cultures, which should help reduce health-outcome disparities for people of different ethnic backgrounds.

"We are giving hope to those who could never fathom becoming professionals in their careers, so they can make a difference in their communities," said Scott, 35, who also works as a registered nurse at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Professor Karen Devereaux Melillo, chair of the Department of Nursing, shares Scott's excitement about the potential of the new $40 million building to provide the university's nursing program with the tools it needs to continue to attract top-notch students and help them utilize the latest medical technologies.

The nursing section of the building, which is the first addition to South Campus in 40 years, will feature nursing stations and a series of hospital beds.

Some of the human simulators enable students to learn how to care for patients suffering from heart failure or with weak vital signs. Students will also have the opportunity to work with a birthing-mom simulator and a child simulator, Melillo said.

"When students can't have access to all type of patients in other settings, we can provide that through some of the simulators," she said.

In addition to improving the learning tools for the nursing department's 480 students, the new facility should also help the university recruit more nursing faculty and train students who may want to teach nursing in the future.

Nationwide there is a shortage of people who want to become professors of nursing, said Melillo.

"This says that the leadership of the university supports nursing in a big way," she said.

The new facility will also be home to criminal-justice and psychology majors, two of the university's most popular disciplines. UMass Lowell Provost Ahmed Abdelal said the university decided to place the nursing, criminal justice and psychology departments in close proximity because they all have significant research components and are multidisciplinary.

"They are already strong, but they are going to get stronger," Abdelal said.

UMass Lowell Chancellor Marty Meehan emphasized his belief that the Health and Social Sciences building will have a transformative impact on students and help them succeed in their careers when they graduate.

Meehan said Rebecca Walsh, a sophomore psychology major from Methuen who worked with homeless families over her spring break rather than sit on the couch, is the type of student focused on serving the community that UMass Lowell will continue to produce through its investments in state-of-the-art facilities. Awilda Pimentel, a senior from Lawrence who is a criminal-justice major and has hosted benefits to help people displaced by fires, is also representative of the type of student the new building will serve, he said.

"The students who will study in this new building will help advance a vibrant society," Meehan said. "So many of our students are committed to making a difference, both while they are here and after they graduate. They help our communities thrive."

Funding for the Health and Social Sciences building was included in the 2008 Higher Education Bond Bill passed by the state Legislature in 2008.

State Sen. Eileen Donoghue, a Lowell Democrat who is the vice chair of the Joint Committee on Higher Education, said the new building will help produce many jobs in three important sectors of communities in the years to come.

"We can no longer look at supporting education as an expense, but as an investment," she said.

Scott, who will also get to utilize the facility as a student, envisions many of those new jobs coming in the nursing field.

"The field of nursing is really growing," she said.