Published May 22, 2020
The Dodge City Community College (DC3) Board of Trustees has approved a lease for an additional 12,150 square feet of off-campus classroom space to expand its nursing program.
“The new location will provide opportunities for expansion of allied health and nursing programs,” Mechele Hailey, DC3 Director of Nursing and Allied Health, said. “For nursing, it will allow us to increase enrollment in nursing cohorts up to 10 additional spots each year. For allied health, it will allow us to have room to add new programs such as health care tech and phlebotomy.”
Hailey said with the new larger space there is also potential to add even more programs in the future. “We also will be partnering with Seward County Community College to offer a respiratory therapy program beginning in Spring 2021,” she said.
When the move is complete, all of the nursing program classes will be relocated to the new site. In the existing on-campus Allied Health building, the college will continue its certified nursing assistant (CNA) and certified medical assistant (CMA) courses. “On campus, we also will be adding high school health care tech beginning Fall 2020 and phlebotomy beginning Spring 2021,” she said.
The new site, which is located at 308 W. Frontview St., will be leased from Gerken Holdings, LLC, for $6,460 per month over the course of 10 years. Most recently, the location has served as the USD No. 443 Learning Center.
Although DC3 will take possession of the property on June 1, nursing programs will not be moved to the new location until the remodeling work is complete, which might be late July or early August, Hailey said.
“We have some walls to put up in the classrooms, and we need to create several office spaces,” she said. “The biggest construction project will be the creation of a nursing clinical laboratory.”
With the addition of the new space, Hailey said the college will be better able to support the area communities with health care workers, which are in high demand.
“We are extremely fortunate to have administration and Board of Trustees support for growing our allied health and nursing programs,” she said. “The addition of the new space will allow for future expansion of programs to accommodate and to serve a greater number of students.”
By Lance Ziesch