Education
Facilities
The SON building consists of approximately 45,648 assignable square feet of space located on four floors designed to support the mission and values of the school; e.g. its proud heritage, its valuing of students, and its commitment to nursing as both art and science.
Student spaces
The first floor of the VCU School of Nursing houses classrooms and the student lounge. The first floor student lounge is a place for students to gather between classes to meet about class projects or to have a quick bite to eat. The student lounge also contains the student mailboxes.
Adjacent to the student lounge is the quiet study area and the doctoral student lounge. The quiet study area has tables and comfortable chairs for students who need a quieter working environment. The doctoral student lounge is equipped with a kitchenette area, a computer, several desks and comfortable chairs. On any given day one can find a number of our doctoral students working together in the doctoral student lounge.
On the second floor of the VCU School of Nursing is a small lounge space for students to gather or meet with their classmates. Additionally, there are classrooms and a computer lab available for students to use.
Faculty and staff offices
The third floor of the VCU School of Nursing houses faculty offices, administrative professionals' offices and conference and work rooms. Additionally, the third floor has a mail room, a kitchen and lounge area, and a small reception area.
Classrooms
The VCU School of Nursing has one 150-seat auditorium, one 100-seat classroom, two 50-seat, and three 30-seat classrooms. All classrooms are “smart” classrooms equipped with powerful computers, DVD players, Wolfvision™ presentation devices, and touch-screen panels used to control projection, volume and lighting. Four of these classrooms have Echo 360™ capture devices (1009, 1011, 1015 and 2001D), a technology that allows instructors to record the audio, video, and VGA output from any particular class.
In addition to the recording abilities, the School of Nursing has Tandberg™ video conferencing units in one of the lecture halls (1011) and in the Dean’s conference room. This device gives us the ability to present or receive lectures to distant locations.
The largest classrooms also have the ability to receive real-time video transmissions from the Clinical Learning Center as simulations occur. This has been used in larger classes to record small teams of students as they are actively engaged in a learning simulation. The rest of the class can view real-time video of the simulation and then when the students participating in the simulation return to class, everyone participates in a debriefing on the experience.
Research and administration
The fourth floor of the building is entirely devoted to research and administration. It houses the following state-of-the-science laboratory facilities and an office for the director of laboratories:
- Bench laboratory
- Autoclave room
- Bulk storage room for research
- Cryo laboratory
- Tissue laboratory
- Research conference room
- File storage room
- Research support and scanning station room
- Research group room with observation room (via one way mirror)
- Research waiting area for research participants
- Interview room
- Two large rooms devoted to research that function as flexible space
These facilities contain items of equipment that allow researchers to perform functional assays of the immune system, general biochemical measures, and analysis and storage of physiological data obtained in clinical research areas.
- Bio-Plex (Bio-Rad) multiplex suspension array system
- -80 degree freezers for storage of subject serum samples prior to analysis
- Actiwatch systems
- Refrigerators
- Freezers (including Forma Model 70A controlled-rate freezer and two 3000 vial capacity liquid nitrogen storage freezers)
- HEPA Filtered Class II biological safety hoods
- Laminar flow hoods
- Refrigerated microcentrifuges
- Refrigerated benchtop centrifuges
- Low-speed general purpose centrifuges
- AThermo Labsystems Multiskan Spectrum ELISA reader (ultraviolet and visual spectrum capabilities)
- Carbon dioxide incubators
- A Zeiss Axiovert inverted microscope
- A scintilation counter
- A PerkinElmer Wizard 1470 Automatic Gamma Counter
- Equipment for measuring endurance and resistance exercise
- A heart monitor to use for exercise testing
- Pulse oximeters
- A complete station for venipuncture.
- Step One Real-Time PCR Machine
- MagMax Express - Magnetic extraction machine for biological samples
Clinical learning
The Clinical Learning Center (CLC) is a state-of-the-science facility utilized by all levels of students and faculty. The Clinical Learning Center occupies most of the second floor of the SON building (9000+ square feet) and includes two intensive care simulation suites with control rooms behind one-way mirrors. A Meti-Man™ Human Patient Simulator (HPS) is in one high-tech simulation room; and the second room is occupied by either the Laerdal Sim-Man® or Sim-Baby®. Both rooms are equipped with ceiling mounted cameras and wireless microphones. A third high-tech simulator mannequin, Laerdal’s Sim-Baby New™ is in a delivery room setting ready for a birth simulation. Students interact with the human patient simulators in scenarios or simulations that have been created by SON faculty or purchased from a vendor.
