Saint Anselm College dedicates $35 million nursing school building

Meet Samii, the mannequin who is bedridden in the AI Simulation Lab, one of the drawing cards to the new $35 million home of the Jean School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Saint Anselm College.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, the muscular, dark-skinned mannequin can hear student-nurse conversations and judge whether he is the topic of their whispers. He can render all sorts of different vitals and symptoms with the click of a mouse.

Jordan Bluhm, a simulation educator, discusses her patient, AI-enhanced Samii, during an open house Sept. 5 at the Grappone Hall at the Jean School of Nursing and Health Sciences at Saint Anselm College. (Mark Hayward)

And he can blurt out troublesome symptoms.

“I can’t catch my breath,” Samii gasps, his lips moving as his eyes bug out as if he were the pending victim in a B-horror movie.

It will be the home of the Jean School, which welcomed its biggest freshman class ever in late August — 210 students, 150 of them enrolled in the nursing program.

Nursing and health-related majors now comprise 27% of the school’s student body.

Grappone Hall is located on the north edge of the college quad. It replaces the single-story Poisson Hall, a computer lab.

Grappone Hall is predominantly brick. Its front includes two stories of south facing windows, the highlight of a first-floor atrium.

The building includes a lecture hall with theater seating, offices, and a $100,000 anatomage light table that shows images of cadavers to be viewed in millimeter-wide layers.

“It’s a place to grow, learn and, honestly, mess up,” said Abigail McGonigle, a senior in the nursing program. “In the real-world setting, you can give medication only once.”

The college said the average on-campus student pays about $34,000 a year to attend Saint Anselm, an amount steeply discounted from the $72,700 sticker price.

The college has not been able to accurately estimate the amount of debt that students graduate with, said college spokesman Paul Pronovost.

Dr. Diane Uzarski, the dean of the Jean School, said the simulation labs, equipment and software added about $1 million to the cost of the project.

 “The gold standard of clinical learning for students is simulated learning,” Uzarski said. “It prepares students in a very structured way to build their skills, to make mistakes and learn in a simulated environment.”

By the second semester of the second year, they are in a clinical setting, and by the last year they work an eight-week, full-time work at a local hospital or health care facility.

University of New Hampshire also had its largest nursing staff this year. At 105, it is smaller than Saint Anselm’s. That doesn’t bother Kirsten Corazzini, dean of UNH College of Health and Human Services.

“It’s not a sandbox; it’s a desert of need,” Corazzini said. She said the two schools are different. Saint Anselm is more focused on graduating front-line nurses, where UNH concentrates on research, doctoral programs and related fields such as physician assistant.

During a dedication ceremony, speakers said the new building was necessary as the need for nurses and health care workers grows in the Granite State.

Judy Follo, Saint Anselm College teacher of anatomy, shows the anatomage table, which provides layered images of cadavers for nursing students to view. (Mark Hayward)

State officials predicted in 2022 that the need for workers in the health care and social assistance sectors will grow by 9,100 over 10 years.

“Particularly since COVID, too many hospitals, too many clinics have been stretched thin,” said U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

During the Biden presidency, Shaheen and fellow Democrat Chris Pappas, the First District New Hampshire congressman, arranged for $4.7 million in earmark funding for the school.

 The remaining amounts were raised in the largest project-based campaign in the college’s history. The college said 14 gave gifts of $500,000 or more, including longtime college benefactors Beverly and Bob Grappone ($5 million) and Roger and Francine Jean ($10 million).

The effort is $3 million short of the goal, which includes $8 million for scholarships.

“The belief Francine and I have,” said Roger Jean, “is that the world needs more Anselmians.”

The Jean School vacated Gadbois Hall, which now houses business classes and offices.