College of the Redwoods and Cal Poly Humboldt believe that, to improve healthcare in our region, we must increase the nursing workforce. We recognize our workforce as the most valuable component in the healthcare system. We know that without a workforce, there will be no one to care for the people who need help the most in our community.

College of Redwoods and Cal Poly Humboldt clearly understand that developing a collaborative relationship between our institutions to improve our region’s nursing workforce is a mutually beneficial strategy. We have discussed the rewards of our collaboration in the past. We can point to Cal Poly Humboldt’s bold move to create a new Bachelor of Nursing degree under the leadership of Dr. Kim Perris. We can also highlight College of the Redwoods’ commitment to hire more nursing faculty, hire Shauna Burdick as our Dean of Allied Health, refurbish the nursing skills lab at our Del Norte Campus, provide more funding to increase the number of students in our nursing program, and move from a lottery-based admissions process to a merit-based admissions process, taking care to ensure that admissions metrics support student equity.

We can also point to our collaboration with Senator Mike McGuire to develop a joint College of the Redwoods/Cal Poly Humboldt Health Care Education Hub. This will be a state-of-the-art innovation center with multiple high fidelity simulation labs that will replicate pre-hospital care, intra-hospital care, and home care experiences. The facility will have space for classrooms and a conference site for Cal Poly Humboldt and College of the Redwoods. In addition to nursing education, we envision using this space for a simulation center, lab space, and to train allied health professionals such as psychiatric technicians, scrub technicians, respiratory therapy, radiology technicians, and more.

Recently, the CR/Cal Poly Humboldt collaboration has produced another bold initiative that will positively impact the quality of healthcare in our community. Cal Poly Humboldt President Dr. Tom Jackson and I signed a memorandum of understanding between our two wonderful institutions, establishing an Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) concurrent enrollment collaborate program. The purpose of this collaborative program is to offer a streamlined, efficient, and seamless pathway for CR’s ADN students to transfer to the Cal Poly Humboldt nursing program to complete a BSN degree.

The beauty of the program lies in the fact that it will enable College of the Redwoods’ ADN students an opportunity to engage in ADN and BSN coursework at CR and Cal Poly Humboldt at the same time, saving them both time and money, and providing a seamless transition to Cal Poly Humboldt to complete their BSN degree without interruption in their coursework.

Dr. Jackson and I are confident that this concurrent enrollment program will help us prepare workforce-ready ADN-to-BSN graduates and will increase the numbers of BSN nursing professionals available for work in the region. This program builds on the existing excellence and diversity of the nursing programs at CR and Cal Poly Humboldt.

I want to thank Cal Poly Humboldt on behalf of the College of the Redwoods Board of Trustees, faculty, students and staff for its innovation, collaboration, and commitment to our region’s students.