UND School of Medicine requests funding for facilities and expanded rural training; SIMND outreach seeks sustained support

Marjorie Jenkins, dean and vice president for health affairs at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), told the Appropriations — Education and Environment Division that curricular changes, increased program credit hours and growth in student numbers produced an $8.1 million formula increase to the medical school’s funding formula and that the school is seeking additional capital support for a health professions facility.

“We are your medical school. We’re here to serve North Dakota for the benefit of its people and to enhance the quality of their lives,” Jenkins said, summarizing the school’s purpose and the rationale for its requests.

Jenkins described three related capital priorities: completing Phase II of the STEM complex (UND’s broader campus capital plan), a proposed health professions addition that would replace aging Columbia Hall and the nursing building, and a request for infrastructure to keep mobile simulation and training equipment in service. The full health professions project budget presented to the committee totaled $119,000,000 and would include demolition, new construction, and renovations; Jenkins said UND would aim for philanthropic support alongside state funding and cited an estimated $24,000,000 philanthropic commitment by the university/foundation.

Jenkins said Columbia Hall is slated for demolition on a compressed timeline after the fire marshal identified safety concerns and a large deferred‑maintenance backlog; she said the medical school had to move 20,000 square feet of programs immediately and still lacks 18,000 square feet of space. “Columbia Hall had… a $42,000,000 deferred maintenance looming on that building,” Jenkins said. She told the committee that removing aging buildings while adding a consolidated health professions facility would reduce deferred maintenance and support interprofessional training.

The medical school also requested $1,000,000 per year for mobile simulation operations (SIMND/SIM MD vans and trucks) to keep outreach training running statewide. Jenkins said SIMND operates large simulation trucks and that four vans would extend training into small towns that the trucks cannot access. The school highlighted examples where prior SIMND training helped local first responders manage wildfire burn victims and praised the program’s statewide role.

Jenkins provided workforce data the committee cited as evidence of local return on investment: 79 percent of family‑medicine physicians in North Dakota are SMHS alumni and 49 percent of all physicians practicing in the state are UND graduates. The dean added that rural residency programs, scrub camps for middle and high school students, and longitudinal clinical placements are central to the school’s strategy to keep graduates practicing in rural communities.

Ending: The committee heard the SMHS requests and a schedule for deeper review; legislators asked for more detail on timing and fundraising commitments as the university works to relocate functions out of Columbia Hall and prepare designs for a new health professions facility.