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Remarks Prepared for Delivery by
U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao
New York Grant Announcement
Pace University—Lienhard School of Nursing
Pleasantville, New York
Monday, June 6, 2005
Thank you, Rick [Whitfield, Executive Vice President, Finance and Administration,
Pace University].
I just had a very interesting tour of the Leinhard Resource Center and the
nursing classroom with the Dean of the Leinhard School of Nursing Harriet
Feldman, and nursing Professor Louise Gallagher.
Let me also recognize Jim Smith, Chairman of the Orange County Workforce
Investment Board; Maggie Moree, Director of the Workforce Development Division
at the New York Labor Department, David H. Freed, President and CEO of Nyack
Hospital, and especially Congresswoman Nita Lowey. Thank you all for coming.
Today, I am pleased to be here to award a grant for more than $1 million
to the Orange County Workforce Investment Board to help train more nursing
faculty. This is the first in a series of nationwide grants, totaling $12
million, which will help prepare our workforce for great opportunities in
the health care and biotechnology professions. This was a competitive process,
so you should take pride in the fact that your proposal was selected.
These grants are part of President Bush's High Growth Job Training Initiative.
This program creates partnerships that help local communities like yours
identify high-growth industries and train workers with the skills to fill
these jobs.
There are many nursing job openings in New York and across America. In
fact, experts estimate that we will need more than a million new registered
nurses alone by 2012. Yet there are not enough qualified workers to fill
these good paying jobs. To help train the nursing workforce of the future,
we must ensure that there is a pipeline of educators to replace retiring
nursing faculty.
The situation is already daunting. The American Association of Colleges
of Nursing reports that nursing schools turned away nearly 16,000 qualified
applicants across the United States in 2003 because there was not enough
faculty, clinical sites and classroom space.
In the Hudson Valley region of New York, the nursing shortage mirrors national
and state trends and the nursing faculty issue is critical. Local colleges
and universities report that faculty vacancies force them to turn away qualified
students each year, despite an 11 percent vacancy rate for nurses in the
area. That's why I want to commend the Hudson Valley Consortium Health Care
Initiative, which will strengthen nursing education in this region.
Through the $1 million grant I am announcing today, the Hudson Valley Healthcare
Consortium will partner with regional healthcare providers to address
the nursing faculty shortage. Healthcare providers will release staff with
master's degrees on a part-time basis to serve as faculty at the region's
public and private educational facilities. In exchange, the healthcare providers
will receive credits from the education facilities to send entry-level nurses
to school to help them advance in their careers.
This grant will help train 50 nurses as instructors. It will also train
100 nursing mentors, 70 adjunct instructors and will allow 1,000 additional
students to be admitted to healthcare education and training programs.
The Hudson Valley Healthcare Consortium is a partnership of 50 health care
providers led by NorMet, 26 education and training providers led by Pace
and 7 workforce investment boards from the Counties of Orange, Putnam/West
Chester, Rockland, Dutchess, Ulster, Sullivan and the City of Yonkers. It
also includes the New York State Departments of Health and Labor and many
others who are too numerous to name.
This program is a win-win partnership for education, health care providers,
students, faculty, workers in New York — and patients!
In addition to this grant, the State of New York has received four other
High Growth Job Training Initiative grants totaling more than $1.9 million
to help train workers for high-growth industries.
Now, I'd like to present a check to the Orange County Workforce Investment
Board.
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