(Butler, PA) Jason Adamson and Luke Veon measured each other’s leg lengths and arm heights near parallel bars, treatment tables and a hospital bed rigged with a patient lift.
Outside that laboratory, Victoria Clawson, Allison Coleman and Molly Grossman learned to navigate wheelchairs through a long hallway.
Across the hallway, Jaydn Best, Megan Brink and Lilli Schoettker sat aside a series of massage therapy tables and heard about the differences between neoplasia and hyperplasia, congenital disorders and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
Down the hallway – past skills laboratory after skills laboratory after skills laboratory housing hospital beds occupied by manikins – Amber Barger, Logan Barnhart and Abigail Frankman inserted an incentive spirometer into a simulated patient’s mouth.
And up the hallway – past a lobby where other students in Butler County Community College’s academic division with the highest enrollment can study, discuss licensing examinations or view the campus through ceiling-to-floor windows – Paige Hampe, Mya Slomers and Shirley Barlow were among those noting information projected on twin 137-inch screens in an 80-seat lecture hall.
“Nothing like this is around here.”
The Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building, the college’s new 25,000-square-foot immersive learning facility, “is state-of-the-art,” Barlow said. “Nothing like this is around here.”
Guests who attend a free community grand opening for the building from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 20 are “going to be impressed by the equipment, the space that we have here, all of the tools that the professors have to teach us,” Veon said.
“They are going to be in awe, in amazement,” Barger said.
The community grand opening will include a program from 3:30 p.m. to 4:10 p.m.
Speakers during the program will include Olivia Vissari, a BC3 registered nursing student; Dr. Patty Annear, dean of the college’s Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health, the academic division with the highest enrollment at BC3; and Dr. Nick Neupauer, president of BC3.
A ribbon-cutting will follow, as will tours of the building and catered refreshments such as beef empanadas, arancini, chicken satay and mini Reuben sandwiches.
"This is a top-notch facility for a community college.”
Enrollment jumps 173% in 15 years
Enrollment in BC3’s health care programs has increased 173 percent since fall 2008, when a building dedicated to nursing and allied health first appeared on the college’s master plan.
In fall 2008, the college’s health care programs enrolled 186 students. Classes were held in 8,000 square feet of BC3’s business and health professions building.
Nine years later, the college announced a $1 million gift from the Janice Phillips Larrick Family Charitable Trust toward construction of a new nursing and allied health facility. Over the next four years, gifts of $1 million followed from former state Sen. Tim Shaffer, Concordia Lutheran Ministries and an anonymous donor; and of $500,000 from Grove City College.
The BC3 Education Foundation as of Aug. 31 had received $6.75 million in private contributions and pledges from 111 donors toward the construction of the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building.
Survey work, removal of trees and preparation for utilities began in February 2022. Construction costs for the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building, and the adjacent Concordia Educational Center, were $14.8 million – half of which was matched by the state Department of Education.
The college also received $500,000 in federal funding for expenses that include technology. Among purchases to assist students are a pair of simulated patients for $110,000; and a system that records simulation scenarios for review with faculty members for $150,000.
“BC3 has always been incredible. … And I think this building will attract more people to this college.”
“It resembles a hospital a lot”
Adamson, Veon, Clawson, Coleman and Grossman are physical therapist assistant students and were among the first to attend classes in the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building when it opened Aug. 21.
So too were Best, Brink and Schoettker, medical coding and billing specialist students; and Barger, Barlow, Barnhart, Frankman, Hampe and Slomers, registered nursing students.
“It resembles a hospital a lot,” Hampe said.
“This is close to what you would see in an actual facility,” Veon said. “So practicing here, you will be able to see the same things as you would when you are actually working. This is a top-notch facility for a community college.”
BC3’s Shaffer School of Nursing and Allied Health as of Aug. 2 enrolled 508 students from at least 20 western Pennsylvania counties.
“This is going to prepare us for where we will be in one or two years.”
The school offers associate degrees in career programs such as health care science, physical therapist assistant, registered nursing and technical trades-massage therapy management option; and workplace certificate or certificate programs in massage therapy, medical coding and billing specialist, and practical nursing.
“BC3 has always been incredible,” Schoettker said. “I know that their nursing programs and health care programs are really a big reason why people come to this school. And I think this building will attract more people to this college.”
Medical records and health information technician, licensed practical and licensed vocational nurse, and registered nurse are among current high-priority occupations in western Pennsylvania, according to the state Department of Labor & Industry’s Center for Workforce Information & Analysis.
More workers were employed in health care and social assistance in Armstrong, Butler, Lawrence and Mercer counties in July than in any other industry, according to the Center for Workforce Information & Analysis.
Students in BC3’s career and certificate programs can develop the skills needed to enter the workforce immediately upon graduation.
“When you graduate, and get a job, and go out into the real world, you’re going to be in a setting similar to this,” said Madison Malley, a practical nursing student at BC3. “This is going to prepare us for where we will be in one or two years.”
“Something of this size, something of this magnitude, I don’t think it’s common to have on a community college campus. This is something you see in big universities.”
The facility includes three simulation rooms, one of which resembles an intensive care unit room; an area with four 70-inch flat screens on which registered nursing students can watch classmates addressing ailments of simulated patients; and patient room headwalls that include live or simulated oxygen, a vacuum and medical air.
A flyover by two medical helicopters is scheduled to take place at 5 p.m. during the community grand opening whose guests “are going to be wowed. I was when I first walked in,” said Paul Zacherl, a massage therapy student at BC3.
“Something of this size, something of this magnitude, I don’t think it’s common to have on a community college campus. This is something you see in big universities.”
BC3 opened on its main campus a $6.4 million high-tech Heaton Family Learning Commons in 2016 and a $2.3 million nature-infused Amy Wise Children’s Creative Learning Center in 2018.
The college created an ultra-modern learning environment with a $1.2 million renovation of BC3 @ Cranberry in Cranberry Township in 2018; and responded to an increase in enrollment with the debut of the $6.5 million BC3 @ Armstrong in Ford City this spring.
Matching funds from the state Department of Education were used in each project. Private gifts were designated toward construction costs of the Heaton Family Learning Commons, Amy Wise Children’s Creative Learning Center and BC3 @ Armstrong in Ford City.
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Nursing and allied health building rising above BC3’s main campus
