Update From Interim Dean Dr. Lois Berry

Happy New Year! Welcome to the University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing.

As we ring in the New Year, I can’t help but look back on the past year and reflect on all the positive things taking place in the College of Nursing. There is so much to celebrate from 2019; some of which, I will highlight below.

The College of Nursing is proud of our growing research success at a provincial level, and we are encouraged by the seeds of success beginning to take hold on the national front. Research funding to date from 2018/2019 was just over $1.5 million. Patient-Oriented Research is an area where we are recognized for our leadership and expertise and we have a number of faculty who have had success in this area over the last year. Currently, we have 152 research partners working with faculty in the College of Nursing.   

2019 saw the announcement of some very exciting news for the College of Nursing in Prince Albert. Although we have offered our nursing program in PA for over a decade and in La Ronge and Ile-a-la-Crosse since 2012, it was announced in September that the University of Saskatchewan purchased a facility located in the heart of Prince Albert that will become the official University of Saskatchewan Prince Albert Campus. We look forward to being co-located with our colleagues in Arts & Science and Dentistry and we welcome additional USask colleges that will join the new campus in the future. Renovations are currently underway; we are excited to start classes in the new space in September 2020.

At the Saskatoon Campus, we were also on the move in 2019.  After thirteen years of renovation and construction, the modifications to the Health Sciences Building were completed last year. The College of Nursing is now located in both the A-Wing and the E-Wing of the new building and we are happy to share space with the Colleges of Dentistry, Medicine and Pharmacy and Nutrition, the School of Public Health and School of Rehabilitation Science. The University is committed to prioritizing interprofessional programming and research for Saskatchewan and the coming together of the Health Sciences is a step in the right direction. Nursing is a major part of health sciences and having the ability to collaborate under one roof opens a number of exciting new opportunities for us in 2020.

The fall of 2019 brought a bit of change to the College of Nursing in Regina. Construction surrounding the property began in September when crews started demolition to the neighbouring buildings to make way for a new commercial property. Faculty, staff and students are to be commended for their ability to carry on in the face of considerable disruption and we continue to work with the new owners to ensure the site supports the current work of faculty, staff and students, as well as the new enrollment of year two students in Fall 2020.  

The College of Nursing is also committed to community partnerships and it’s those partnerships that have allowed us to become the leader in the country in terms of the number and proportion of Indigenous nursing students we educate. We currently have 201 self-declared Indigenous nursing students taking their undergraduate program, which represents 20.6% of our total undergraduate student body. We are delighted to report approximately 90% of those students are retained to graduation (compared with an approximate 92% retention rate overall). In our graduate program, we have 12 self-declared Indigenous nursing students, representing 6.8% of the student body. We are humbled that our long-standing community partnerships support the recruitment and graduation of the Indigenous students who choose to study at the University of Saskatchewan College of Nursing.

Our reputation is built on the quality of our graduates. Graduates of the College are providing leadership as skilled front line nurses, managers, educators, researchers and public policy developers around the world and right here at home. Congratulations to our students who completed their programs in 2019.  

These are just a few of the accomplishments we celebrated in 2019. As you move through our website, I encourage you to visit our faculty and staff profiles, browse our current news items and explore our programs to keep up to date on the latest College of Nursing success stories.

Wishing you health, happiness and success in the year to come.

Sincerely,

Interim Dean
College of Nursing
University of Saskatchewan