A Conversation With ... Bob McGlasson

You took over as vice president of operations for the college Nov. 3. What are the key functions of the position?
I’m sort of the middleman, the link, between the two campuses right now. It helps keep the communication open. That helps budgetwise. Before, (the college) would say we need this and this and (SBU) would say, “Are you sure? That’s a lot of money.” Now, when I come up, I can help explain the needs. It helps administrators on the main campus understand this campus more, but it will also help this campus progress.

Why was this position created?
Last year, I served as interim dean here. The dean resigned right before school started, and I got a call from the provost. I didn’t know anything about nursing, but I’m an experienced administrator. I was here halftime and in Bolivar doing my regular job halftime.

I knew everybody down here and got to build a relationship with them. During that time, I realized I could help this college. We didn’t realize how big things had gotten down here. This is our Springfield campus of SBU and we have two others, but this has always been the largest branch campus.

The partnership with Mercy is for the (associate of science in nursing) program, but we have others, the (bachelor’s of science in nursing), (master’s of science in nursing) and related programs that were strictly SBU. This has grown so much.

The first thing I noticed was we had 700-plus students down here; that’s a small university. There are a lot of colleges out there with 700 students that are self-contained universities, and this is just one college. We also had 60 full-time faculty. We needed more leadership down here.

I went back and said, “Hey this is big.” We had to address it and continue to address it as it grows and continues to grow rapidly. We are exploring with Mercy Springfield what would it mean for us to be its dedicated education unit.

Where is this continued growth stemming from?
Things are changing in terms of how people learn. It doesn’t always have to be a degree. There are a lot of certificates and that’s what we are going to work with [Mercy] on. We are even working on some professional development areas with their middle managers. A lot of it will be online; more will be a hybrid approach. But you are dealing with busy adults, and a hospital is 24/7. We have to be ready to meet them where they need to be met.

We have an enrollment of 730 right now and I think we will be upwards of 1,000 in just a few years. We have a record enrollment this fall and spring already is looking great.

There has been a change in standards. Degrees that used to be good enough, now have to be upgraded. An ASN degree a now needs to have a BSN. The medical and hospital standards have changed so people have to go back for that upgrade. Mercy is trying to achieve magnet status at the hospital, so [administrators] are looking for more BSN nurses. That’s a driver for us.

The U.S. currently has a nursing shortage, expected to intensify as baby boomers age. How is the college addressing the issue?
Thirty percent of current nurses are retiring in the next five years. You have had growth for a long time simply because of the need as the industry grew. Now, they are retiring. It’s making that need even more.

The growth is presenting challenges to us – good challenges like the need for more faculty and more classroom space. We are in the process of looking to expand this facility. We are just out of space and have been out for a while. There are times when this building is packed.

We have some ideas and preliminary drawings. Funding is always an issue, but this is a partnership with Mercy, so we would have to decide who does what. They own this facility; we operate it.