Southwestern Michigan College is celebrating the graduation of 23 new nurses. The SMC nursing program held a ceremony for the graduates this month as the students now head into the country’s largest healthcare profession. SMC Vice President of Instruction David Fleming tells WSJM News the college has graduated more than 3,000 nurses over the years.
“It’s kind of been our signature cornerstone program for 40 or 50 years now, but it’s gotten a lot of focus for the last two years because we did a very big campaign to renovate our nursing facilities and we now have state of the art simulation labs,” Fleming said.
Fleming says most of the 23 nurses who graduated last week head into careers already waiting for them.
“Almost all of our students will have jobs lined up about a month before they graduate in part because they’re out on htese clinical sites and these hospitals are getting a sense of how talented they are, and there’s this huge need.”
SMC just completed a major expansion of its nursing facility within the last year, and Fleming says the college could be graduating larger nursing classes within a few years. SMC says the employment of registered nurses is projected to grow 12% by 2028 as demand for medical professionals, in general, increases.
Graduates include:
Brianna Belardinella of Granger,
Kimberlie Boyer of Lawrence,
Courtney Brisbois of Dowagiac,
Ashley Charles of Cassopolis,
Jenna Cox of Kalamazoo,
Raegen Dent of Buchanan,
Katharine Ertman of Schoolcraft,
Derrick Goodrich of Cassopolis,
Nicole Hill of Niles,
Courtney Houser of Edwardsburg,
Candace Kantorowski of South Bend,
Chelsea Kasinger of Pullman,
Sarah Mansell of Edwardsburg,
Molly Marquart of Stevensville,
Britney Mills of Stevensville,
Taylor Myers of Dowagiac,
Christine Owens of St. Joseph,
Kristine Quintanilla of Niles,
Meagan Ritchie of Edwardsburg,
Ashley Schoetzow of Jones,
Maricar Shonk of Bridgman,
Layne Stinnett of Edwardsburg, and
Logan Williams of Elkhart.
