

The school is estimated to have a $22.7 billion impact on North Texas.įor Cowley, taking the helm at the school is a bit like leading a small city. The building creates a health sciences quad on the southeast corner of campus, which also includes the Science and Engineering Innovation and Research Building Pickard Hall, which houses CONHI and the Life Science Building.Īll those projects are key to the school maintaining its wide-ranging influence on the area and its economy. “We want to encourage as much collaboration as possible,” she said. Nursing students can use a virtual reality lab to take mental health and clinical foundations courses and, using VR headsets, practice communication and interviewing skills with patients.Ĭowley is just as proud of the chairs in the classrooms that are on wheels allowing students to quickly work together in groups.

The building includes medical robots that can simulate heart attacks, strokes, respiratory distress or even childbirth as well as a classroom set up as an apartment suite, where social work and nursing students can practice in-home services, such as hospice care or site visits. The $76 million, 150,000-square-foot School of Social Work/College of Nursing and Health Innovation (CONHI) Smart Hospital building, houses one of the largest nursing programs in the country and largest social work program in the state. “When you come into a position like this, many things are already in motion, so I get to celebrate things like opening this brand new, amazing smart hospital and social work building,” she said. Construction will begin in a few months, Cowley said.Īnd there are plenty of other new initiatives for the school that enrolled its largest ever first-time-in-college student class (4,463 ) in fall of 2022, surpassing the fall 2021 total by nearly 7%.

The winning student designs will be incorporated wherever possible in the project.

“Growing up, SIMCity was my favorite, it really helped me decide what I wanted to do,” she said. “I loved that,” said Cowley, who admits she loves city planning and design. Students got involved in the process, fielding design teams who imagined the future of the Cooper Street pedestrian bridges. Earlier this year, Cowley officially opened its School of Social Work and Smart Hospital, and plans have started on a project to redesign the Cooper Street bridges that connect the campus across the busy street.
