Healthcare eyed as MSU’s opportunity
JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Steve Shirley, Minot State University president, addresses the State Board of Higher Education on Thursday, Sept. 24. Shown at left are Carmen Simone, president of Lake Region State College, and Lisa Karch, interim president of North Dakota State College of Science.
JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Brent Sanford, North Dakota University System commissioner, listens at left as Kevin Black, president of the State Board of Higher Education, speaks at the opening of the board’s meeting at Minot State University Thursday, Sept. 24.
JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Steve Shirley, Minot State University president, addresses the State Board of Higher Education on Thursday, Sept. 24. Shown at left are Carmen Simone, president of Lake Region State College, and Lisa Karch, interim president of North Dakota State College of Science.
JILL SCHRAMM/MDN Brent Sanford, North Dakota University System commissioner, listens at left as Kevin Black, president of the State Board of Higher Education, speaks at the opening of the board’s meeting at Minot State University Thursday, Sept. 24.
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Minot State University plans to double-down on its health science programs to help meet the workforce needs in the state, MSU President Steve Shirley told members of the State Board of Higher Education, who met in Minot Thursday, Sept. 24.
Healthcare is one of three focus areas in MSU's effort to achieve the North Dakota University System's pillars to retain North Dakota students, attract more out-of-state students and upskill more North Dakota adults who lack degrees or credentials, Shirley said.
"We've got some real opportunities here at Minot State in the healthcare fields," he said. "Nursing is our largest major on this campus. We have a little over 300 declared majors this fall in nursing."
MSU received $8.5 million from the state during the 2025 legislative session to create a healthcare simulation center in a downtown Minot building. Shirley said MSU is purchasing the Trinity Health West building at Burdick and Broadway. Trinity is adding a new roof and completing some interior renovation before the sale closes.
Dakota College at Bottineau currently occupies the second floor, delivering one- and two-year nursing programs. The first floor will become a simulation center to provide training for nursing students, including those in MSU's bachelor's nursing degree program.
Relocating simulation programs offered in Memorial Hall on campus to the new center would allow Memorial's classrooms to be expanded and nursing program admissions to be increased from 24 each semester to 32, Shirley said.
"There's going to be a lot of community partnering opportunities there as well," Shirley said of the proposed simulation center, citing potential training uses by high schools, public health, ambulance squads and area critical care hospitals.
MSU also offers bachelor's degrees in radiologic technology, medical lab science, biomedical science, corporate fitness and wellness management, bioinformatics, computational biology and exercise science and rehabilitation.
Shirley said he has been talking with the University of North Dakota School of Medicine about ways to interest more undergraduate students in a pre-med track.
Meanwhile, Dakota College at Bottineau's dental hygiene and dental assistant program in a former downtown Trinity building owned by MSU's foundation is growing. Shirley, who serves as DCB president through the affiliation between the college and MSU, said demand for the hygiene program was forcing some applicants onto a waiting list. DCB started a second cohort to accommodate more students. An emergency medical technician program also is located in the building.
In addition to healthcare, another focus for MSU is identifying needed workforce programs, such as the bachelor's degree innovative engineering and graduate-degree substance abuse counseling launched this fall, Shirley said.
The innovation engineering program has 19 students, which includes eight freshman, seven sophomores and four upperclassmen. Shirley said some students declaring the major have added innovation engineering as a second degree to existing majors.
The Master of Science in substance use counseling has started with three students. Shirley said approval from the Higher Learning Commission for the degree wasn't obtained until April, making it difficult to recruit for fall.
Shirley also spoke about the university's existing Aspire program, designed to identify high school students well suited to education careers and introduce them earlier to the opportunities. The goal is to address a teacher shortage that is particularly critical in rural districts. A five-year, $5 million Bush Foundation grant also is helping paraprofessionals complete special education degrees online through MSU.
The third focus area that's getting a close look relates to graduate degrees.
"Our enrollments have dipped a little bit over the last four years at the graduate level, and we're going to do a deep dive here this fall and figure out why that is. Is there something we need to be doing differently from a marketing standpoint, from a recruiting standpoint? Do we have to be talking to potential students differently at the graduate level? But we've got to get that trend turned around," Shirley said.
Flexibility and accessibility will be examined, although MSU already has a number of graduate and other programs that are entirely online, Shirley said. Among them is a program that enables two-year degree nurses to obtain their four-year bachelor's degrees.