Professor P. Ann Solari-Twadell has received a $3.8 million Nurse Education, Practice, Quality and Retention—Workforce Expansion Program grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration.

This award will allow the Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing to establish an undergraduate Rural Health Care Nursing Scholars program and increase the number of students who receive specialized training in acute and long-term care rural settings.

The program will include a curriculum in rural health care with online, hybrid, and simulated content, reflective journaling, small group, and face-to-face classroom/workshop education, and clinical experiences in rural sites.

The grant builds on the annual Pine Ridge service immersion, launched by Solari-Twadell in 2018, which sends Loyola Nursing students to a medically underserved, rural reservation in South Dakota for one week each spring.

The grant will also allow the school to:

• Expand clinical partnerships in rural areas in South Dakota, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Indiana.
• Create and pilot-test an asynchronous, module-based educational undergraduate program that can be replicated by other schools.
• Increase the number of new Loyola Nursing graduates working in rural areas.
• Increase the number of preceptors and clinical faculty ready to educate our students in rural settings.