LINCOLN – A vote by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents on Thursday launched the design phase for the largest project in NU’s history: the $2.19 billion Project Health.
By approving a “program statement” for the proposed health facility, the Regents released $50 million from existing philanthropic funds to begin preliminary design and planning work for construction.
The complex will be state-of-the-art and will span approximately 120,000 square meters on the main campus of the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Midtown Omaha.
It will be a clinical teaching center to train the next generation of health care providers and Nebraska Medicine’s primary inpatient hospital with more than 550 beds. It will also host research and clinical trials.
Increase in student numbers
NU officials describe Project Health as the largest project in the university’s history, surpassing the size and cost of the $370 million Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center that opened on campus in 2017.
NU President Jeffrey Gold, who championed Project Health during his tenure as UNMC chancellor, said Thursday that the public-private venture will help solve the state’s workforce problems and have a “transformative impact” on Nebraska.
The facility is to be built on a now cleared 7.5 hectare site, which was previously partly home to the relocated Munroe-Meyer Institute.
The modernized classroom environment would allow the medical center to fulfill its mission and attract students, said UNMC Interim Chancellor Dele Davies, noting that the medical center would need to increase student enrollment by as much as 25% to meet the needs of the state’s rural and urban areas.
“This will only be possible through a significant improvement in our physical environment,” said Davies.
Dr. James Linder, CEO and chairman of the board of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement that he appreciated the regents’ unanimous support for the project.
“The new facility will allow Nebraska Medicine to fulfill our mission as the primary teaching hospital for UNMC and Clarkson College,” Linder said. “This will strengthen our ability to educate more health science students and provide the highest quality care to all Nebraskans.”
Project Health – short for Project Health: Building the Healthiest Nebraska – is the first phase of a broader vision called Project NExT.
Future phases will require partnerships with federal and regional agencies that could, for example, lead to a civil-military medical facility that could also respond to national disasters such as another pandemic or an open attack. The total investment could be over $4 billion.
New Bachelor’s degree programs
Regents also approved the creation of several new bachelor’s degree programs on Thursday, with a Bachelor of Science in Artificial Intelligence attracting the most attention.
The AI program, to be offered at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and believed to be the first of its kind in Nebraska, is aimed at a growing workforce, proponents say.
According to Gold, artificial intelligence is changing literally by the minute and is poised to transform every aspect of life.
“It’s both exciting and a little scary,” he said.
There is no doubt, Gold said, that this technology will prevail, and the university system must be ready to help students take the lead in this field.
Regent Barbara Weitz of Omaha praised the university and said the graduation shows that the university is looking forward – “to be ready for the world that is coming.”
The AI program is expected to launch in fall 2025 and will be based on courses from UNO’s computer science program and UNL’s data science degree program.
UN Chancellor Joanne Li said the program would put the country at the forefront of training high-tech workers.
The regents also gave the green light Thursday to launch bachelor’s certificates in wildlife habitat management and in esports media and communications, both at UNL. An NU statement said the esports media certificate will prepare students for work in electronic sports, or competitive video gaming, an industry that NU says is growing rapidly and whose audience is expected to surpass 1.4 billion by 2025.
Also Thursday, the regents approved the two-year budget, which includes a 3% pay raise and a 5% health insurance increase. Gold called the numbers a “placeholder” until collective bargaining and health insurance plans are finalized later this year.
Get the morning’s headlines straight to your inbox
