An up-close look at Baylor nursing’s new home
In case you haven’t heard: Baylor’s Louise Herrington School of Nursing (LHSON) has a beautiful, high-tech new home!
Over the past decade, it had become clear that our nursing students needed a new and updated space. Conveniently, onto the market came the former Baptist General Convention of Texas Building — located adjacent to the former LHSON building, and just steps from Baylor University Medical Center and more than 150 professional nursing practice sites in Dallas-area communities. Alumni and friends of Baylor stepped forward, giving a combined $28 million to purchase the building and give it new life as home to Baylor nursing. Renovation began in February 2017, following a lead gift from the late Louise “Lou” Herrington Ornelas, a longtime and generous supporter of the LHSON.
Completed in the summer of 2018 and dedicated on Aug. 30, the four-story building has dramatically addressed the nursing school’s need for more classrooms and student service space, more than doubling its previous space by adding 100,000 square feet for high-tech nursing education. Features of the renovated campus include a central atrium for students to congregate and collaborate, active learning classrooms that foster more dynamic group interaction and allow for innovative teaching, an auditorium, chapel for quiet spiritual reflection and a Learning Resource Center. The previous campus now focuses exclusively on clinical practice and simulation laboratories for nursing students and faculty.
My personal favorite part of the building? The Divine Servant statue, set right at the front entrance, which was given to Baylor by Dallas Baptist University.
[WATCH a full tour of the new LHSON building.]
As one of the university’s 12 academic units, the LHSON represents what the university hopes its graduates will become — sources of light within their communities, serving those in need and glorifying God through their calling as nurses, as President Livingstone noted at the building’s dedication.
Sic ’em, Baylor Nursing!
You might also like:
* Remembering a Baylor Nursing legend: Louise Herrington Ornelas (Jan. 2019)
* Fulbright honor allows Baylor nursing prof to teach, serve and connect nurses across the globe (July 2018)
* Baylor Nursing gala, featuring Mrs. Laura Bush, raises $1M to support nursing students (March 2018)