CONTACT: Dr. J. Dirk Nelson, 806-651-3501, [email protected]

COPY BY: Brittany Castillo, 806-651-2682, [email protected]

CANYON, Texas—The nursing program at West Texas A&M University is relocating from the Canyon campus to the Harrington Academic Hall WTAMU Amarillo Center projected for fall 2021.

The move will place 250 undergraduate students and approximately 20 nursing faculty and staff in Amarillo, and it will 1961offer greater opportunities for collaboration between the nursing program and other WT programs including communication disorders, the Panhandle Area Education Center and the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.

These partnerships will benefit from closer proximity by better promoting wellness services, such as those presented at the biannual WT Inner City Health Fair, and helping prevent chronic disease.

“WT’s College of Nursing and Health Sciences mission is to enhance the quality of life for citizens in our region. Moving the Department of Nursing to Harrington Hall will allow us to expand our curricula and expand our ability to enhance the quality of life for citizens in our region,” Dr. J. Dirk Nelson, dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, said.

“Additionally, this move will place WT – with its faculty expertise, programmatic endeavors, facilities and proximity to multiple medically underserved counties – in a unique position to closely ally with the vice chancellor’s goal of an Institute for Advancing Agriculture and Health, which will improve the well-being of Texans.”

The relocation is in response to maxim nine aimed to foster locally responsive research and infrastructure as listed in the University’s generational plan WT 125: From the Panhandle to the World. Specifically, this also will help increase the number of registered nurses with a comprehensive master’s degree such as with family nurse practitioners and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners.

Relocation was helped made possible with a 6 million dollar investment borrowed from The Texas A&M System under the leadership of Chancellor John Sharp. The announcement was made along with sharing the results of WT’s most recent Economic Impact Report at the Amarillo City Council public meeting.

For more information about the WT nursing program, call 806-651-2630 or email [email protected]

—WTAMU—