A recent $10 million donation to the University of Central Florida’s College of Nursing will allow the school to expand its facilities, officials say.

School representatives say the college will use the funding, which comes from the Orlando-based Dr. Phillips Charities, to create a new building on campus.

Expanding educational facilities is one of a few measures the school has taken in recent years to address the nursing shortage in the state of Florida. In addition to the planned expansion, the school continues to graduate students from its accelerated nursing degree program.

“This building is going to enable us to expand our space, expand our enrollment and expand our opportunities for interprofessional education and research,” said College of Nursing Dean Mary Lou Sole.

Beyond the new facility, which is slated to be operational by 2025, Sole pointed to the importance of hiring more faculty to meet the growth of the student body.

“The faculty is an aging workforce,” she said. “So part of our mission is to help us educate more faculty for the future.”

Across the country, experts say nurses are leaving the profession in droves.

According to a 2022 study by McKinsey & Company, more than a third of nurses in the U.S. have said they are considering leaving the profession. Meanwhile, the Florida Hospital Association anticipates a shortage of more than 37,000 nurses across the state by 2035.

Along with putting more nurses in the field, Sole says the College of Nursing is making sure graduates are able to thrive in the industry.

“It’s the nursing care that’s there 24/7 at an institution, it’s the nurses that are in the community caring for patients,” she said. “And what the nurses are asking for is to be compensated fairly for that, to demonstrate that value of their work.”

Sayid Yasin, a recent graduate of the college’s accelerated nursing program, encouraged others contemplating a career pivot to consider nursing.

“Being an accelerated student, I have seen people from many backgrounds enter this field,” said Yasin. “There were people from education, pharmaceutical sales, there was a pilot in our cohort, a Disney employee.”

Yasin will start a nursing residency position in the cardiovascular intensive care unit at a local hospital in December.