The Space to Change Nursing Education & Research

In addition to students, the existing space demands imagination and flexibility from teachers, clinicians, visiting scholars, and staff. To stay competitive, and to fulfill the promise to the next generations of Hopkins Nursing students, would require a significant reimagining of the type and size of spaces. And without a doubt, the building needed to grow, a lot.

“We promise—and deliver—the best graduate education available. But we find ourselves making quick fixes so that people don’t feel the squeeze. This plan is a more permanent solution.”
— David Newton

“You get to a point where you start thinking about your competitive edge,” explains David Newton, associate dean for finance and administration, who has taken a lead role on the project. “We are one of the top graduate nursing schools in the world today, and that’s not an accident. We promise—and deliver—the best graduate education available. But we find ourselves making quick fixes so that people don’t feel the squeeze. This plan is a more permanent solution.”

Graduate students learn differently, and are taught differently. They require and insist upon better access to faculty—for mentoring and for collaboration. To continue recruiting the best and brightest, the School of Nursing needs a building that can catch the eye of potential grad students, then wow them with its educational amenities. And to attract more of the globe’s thought leaders for study, research, and partnership, there must be contemplative, flexible space and ready technology.

Newton believes the structure envisioned by architects from Hord Coplan Macht and William Rawn Associates, which eliminates the SON House and conjoins five floors worth of space to the Pinkard Building, more than meets that lofty goal. “The phrase ‘student-centric’ has been at the top of the drawing board since the beginning of this process,” he says, adding that the addition would create “a ‘Welcome’ sign to the world.”

Renderings include glass surfaces and entrance spaces that offer a glimpse of all that is going on within the school to the community of nursing, to colleagues and collaborators on the East Baltimore campus, and to the neighborhood itself. Internally, the building features spaces for collaboration and contemplation, creates synergies between clinical and research faculty, and provides ample space for student and faculty collaboration on health care solutions for the future.

That can happen when you become the top school in the nation and the student body grows, then changes radically. “The building was designed for undergraduate education,” Lund explains. “Over time, the changes in pedagogy as the school shifted to an all-graduate format have required more student-centric learning spaces.” He adds, “The school is No. 1 in research, but try to find evidence of that in the building.”

Large lecture halls, now three quarters empty at times, had become outmoded. Architect Cliff Gayley of William Rawn Associates says a separation from faculty and research opportunities—actual as well as perceived—was clear from interactions with students. A five-story layout had come to function as very separate zones of activity. And the stairwells weren’t built as learning modules.

Lund worked with Gayley to address the needs of modern nursing education, collaboration, and research with “right-sized classrooms,” a student hub, a “study cube for collaboration beyond the classroom,” and the Think Tank—a research center—expanding Pinkard by about 41,000 square feet, and the possibilities of education and research well into the 21st century.

One of Dean Patricia Davidson’s goals in the construction and remodeling of Pinkard is to further establish the School of Nursing’s “presence.” Internally, this means seamless clinical, research, and learning as well as a sense of community—“one flexible environment.” Externally, this means a building that can stand shoulder to shoulder with the Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins Hospital while projecting an openness to the East Baltimore community they all serve.

Gayley and Lund had plenty to go on, including one indelible image of what didn’t work.

— Steve St. Angelo

There’s a space with your name on it at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.

Or there could be soon enough. Unnamed areas of the School of Nursing expansion project include everything from a conference center and classrooms to the commons and the courtyard. These are the areas whose names will become shorthand and compass points for students into the future.

And naming rights are but one way to contribute to the future of nursing education and the profession itself as we transform the Pinkard Building for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century. Collaboration is being built into the structure, including the relationships with our supporters at every level of giving.

A brick campaign, currently slated as a wall of the courtyard, will allow donors to contribute at smaller levels and be a part of this historic building transformation. More details will be announced as the design details are formalized.

Money for the $45 million project will come in part from a blend of operating cash and debt, the latter of which shrinks of course as more supporters join the effort. A big boost has already come from benefactors including the France-Merrick and Blaustein foundations. The rest will come through continued fundraising as we begin to show the progress and impact we are making in East Baltimore and beyond.