News Release| School of Nursing; Cal State L.A.

November 15, 2012

HRSA grant to boost nursing education

Cal State L.A. receives a total of $2.4 million in scholarships for nursing students

Los Angeles, CA – The School of Nursing at California State University, Los Angeles has recently been awarded a four-year, $2.4 million Human Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant to alleviate the critical shortage of nurses in the surrounding communities and to support nursing students in completing their academic degrees.

 “This award will help remove financial barriers to obtaining a bachelor’s or master’s nursing education,” said CSULA’s Assistant Professor of Nursing Nnenna Weathers (Long Beach resident), the grant’s principal investigator, “and it will help improve academic performance of disadvantaged and underrepresented minority nursing students.”

CSULA’s School of Nursing aims to diversify the workforce and improve retention and graduation rates of disadvantaged and underrepresented students, while continuing to prepare advanced practice nurses thus increasing the number of primary care health professionals that provide care to diverse communities.

“We continue to increase the knowledge of minority health care issues in our nursing programs and to encourage students to work in primary care sites and in medically-underserved areas,” explained Dr. Weathers.

Each year, the grant will provide scholarships for 15 undergraduate students pursuing a bachelor’s degree in nursing; five registered nurses enrolled in the bachelor’s degree in nursing program; and 20 graduate and entry-level master’s students. The money will be applied to the cost of tuition, books, living expenses, and other reasonable educational expenses.

Full-time graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in the CSULA’s School of Nursing, in good academic standing, and demonstrating financial need will be eligible for a scholarship. Preference will also be given to graduate students entering primary care, and planning to work in medically underserved areas.

“This HRSA grant will allow us to continue to strengthen and develop excellent graduate and undergraduate programs that prepare nurses to provide quality care that improves the health of diverse communities,” said Cynthia Hughes, Director of the School of Nursing at CSULA.

HRSA, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated or medically vulnerable. Its mission is to improve health and achieve health equity through access to quality services, a skilled health workforce and innovative programs. For more about HRSA: http://www.hrsa.gov/about/index.html.

CSULA’s nursing program, which celebrated its 60th anniversary last year, is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing and received continuing accreditation from the Collegiate Commission on Nursing Education. U.S. News and World Report 2013 “America’s Best Graduate Schools” edition has ranked CSULA’s nursing master’s degree program among the top in the nation. CSULA is one of only two public universities in the Los Angeles area, and the only CSU campus, listed in the top 100. For CSULA’s School of Nursing website: /academic/hhs/nursing/.

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Working for California since 1947: The 175-acre hilltop campus of California State University, Los Angeles is at the heart of a major metropolitan city, just five miles from Los Angeles’ civic and cultural center. More than 20,000 students and 225,000 alumni—with a wide variety of interests, ages and backgrounds—reflect the city’s dynamic mix of populations. Six Colleges offer nationally recognized science, arts, business, criminal justice, engineering, nursing, education and humanities programs, among others, led by an award-winning faculty. Cal State L.A. is home to the critically-acclaimed Luckman Jazz Orchestra and to the Honors College for high-achieving students. Programs that provide exciting enrichment opportunities to students and community include an NEH-supported humanities center; a NASA-funded center for space research; and a growing forensic science program, housed in the Hertzberg-Davis Forensic Science Center. www.calstatela.edu