Leveraging the Legislature From the cover
Zooming in
What’s happening?
UH College of Nursing enrollment
131 students in fall 2015
584 students in fall 2024
As construction nears completion, Neal said university officials are now requesting $175 million from the state Legislature to build a health tech- nology building for the Andy & Barbara Gessner College of Nursing. If approved, the 80,000-square-foot building will bring classrooms, instructional and research labs, student support spaces and offices. The building would also house a Perioperative Nursing Center aimed at providing training through virtual reality, artificial intelligence and robotic surgery, Neal said. The nursing center is an additional $15 million request that could help grow the region’s health care workforce as demand mirrors the state’s needs. The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration predicts Texas will need 310,700 nurses by 2037. Additional programs that could be housed in the new building include the UH Population Health Collaborative, which is working to determine
The 75,000-square-foot technology building—adjacent to the existing technology building—will house the Cullen College of Engineering-Technology Division, which has been transitioning to the Sugar Land campus since 2022, Neal said. The three-story building will accommodate its rst classes this fall. This will complete the transition from the main campus and bring over the last two departments, which are electrical power technology and computer engineering technology, Neal said. The new building will include wet and dry labs, traditional and active-learning classrooms, computer labs, student lounge areas, conference spaces and student advising spaces. The building comes as the university’s enrollment grows in Sugar Land, with 2,177 technology division students taking at least one in-person class during the fall 2024 semester, according to UH data.
+345.8%
Statewide demand for registered nurses
253,610 nurses needed in 2025
310,700 projected nurses needed in 2037
+22.51%
SOURCES: UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON, U.S. HEALTH RESOURCES AND SERVICES ADMINISTRATION/COMMUNITY IMPACT
Fort Bend County’s urban health index measuring residents’ quality of lives, as well as a master’s degree in a health care leadership program offering robotics and cancer research laboratories, according to university legislative agenda documents. “We are maxed out in the space we currently have,” Neal said. “We need more clinical spaces, and we need more faculty lines, but we also need more space.”
University of Houston at Sugar Land enrollment, 2020 24
Digging deeper
Neal said the university is always working with city, county and industry officials to determine what workforce needs the community has and how the university can help meet those needs. “I want my students to have career options,” he said. “Looking [at] what businesses are coming out here and the businesses that are growing to be that professional workforce pipeline for the region, … the conception to market model is what we have out here.”
Carlos Guzman, director of Fort Bend County’s internal Economic Opportunity and Development department, said he believes universities play a key role in creating and sustaining a thriving workforce environment. “Companies that are expanding throughout the country are always looking at available work- force as a key component in their site selection component,” he said. “Key investments also spur industry partnerships as well as opportunities for entrepreneurship.”
4,000
3,000
3,584
3,126
2,000
1,000
0
Fall
2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
SOURCE: UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON AT SUGAR LAND/ COMMUNITY IMPACT
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