TTUHSC School of Nursing Celebrates 40th Anniversary

The School Counts Almost 17,000 Red Raider Nurses

• By Melissa Whitfield
• May 7, 2021

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Nursing is celebrating 40 years of educating nurses. The school counts almost 2,000 students across the state and nearly 17,000 graduates as of May 2021. 

TTUHSC School of Nursing Dean Michael Evans, Ph.D., R.N., FAAN and TTUHSC Grover E. Murray Professor, attributes the growth to demand across Texas for outstanding BSN-prepared graduates.

“We have grown from a very small first class to having students all across the state,” Evans said. “There has been a great demand, across the region and the state, that has grown over the years. That need married with our outstanding quality has caused us to grow gradually over the last 40 years.”

Evans became dean of the TTUHSC School of Nursing in 2012. Since then, the School of Nursing has expanded in size with just under 2,000 students, making the School of Nursing the largest school at TTUHSC and one of the largest in the state of Texas.

“TTUHSC nursing graduates provide quality health care across our state and nation, and they hold leadership positions in facilities and in organizations that affect policy changes in health care,” TTUHSC President Lori Rice-Spearman, Ph.D., said. “Our School of Nursing has been very innovative in the areas of simulation and interprofessional education over the past 40 years—but we’re just getting started.”

Even with the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic—face-to-face classes became virtual over a weekend—the quality of the classes did not decrease, nor did the demand. In fact, the number of applications to the school increased and a satellite campus at Methodist Mansfield Medical Center in the Dallas-Fort Worth area was announced in April.

“We hear nothing but the very highest accolades from other health care providers,” Evans said. “But most importantly, the patients who derive care from our students are very congratulatory to us for helping them to become nurses who deliver the highest quality of compassionate care that can be provided anywhere.”

Rice-Spearman concurred.

“Employers rank the quality of our students as highly desirable. In fact, it’s one of the reasons we’ve had communities like Mansfield, Abilene and others reach out to collaborate with us to educate nurses for their workforces. Additionally, our graduates’ successes are a large part of the school’s high rankings received at the state and national levels for both online and face-to-face programs. Of course, none of this would be possible without the school’s tremendous faculty leadership and staff support.”

Other notable information about the TTUHSC School of Nursing:

• The school’s NCLEX first-time pass rate has been consistently above 95% for several years.
• Nursing Schools Almanac ranked the school among the best schools in the state and nation.
• The school has campuses in Lubbock, Amarillo, Abilene, Dallas and the Permian Basin (Midland and Odessa). In addition, the school has program locations in San Antonio, Austin and Houston and a satellite campus in Mansfield.
• The school operates community clinics specializing in primary care — two in Lubbock — the Larry Combest Community Health and Wellness Center, a Federally Qualified Health Center; the Combest Central Community Health Center — and the third, the Abilene Community Health Center.

The TTUHSC School of Nursing offers four undergraduate pathways in nursing: traditional BSN, second-degree accelerated BSN, Veteran to BSN, and RN to BSN. Graduate programs include nine master’s specializations, eight post-master’s programs, graduate certificates in global health and rural community health and a DNP program that includes BSN to DNP and post-graduate DNP program.