IUP eyes potential location for medical school, state announces ‘investment’ in project
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The state will invest $2 million in startup funds toward developing a College of Osteopathic Medicine at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, state Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman announced Wednesday night.
Pittman, R-Indiana, delivered the news at a public reception welcoming the proposed college’s recently named founding dean, Miko Rose.
It came hours after IUP’s Council of Trustees identified a campus site for what would be the first osteopathic medical school on a public university campus in the state.
Pittman said the endeavor would improve rural health care by easing the shortage of primary care and family doctors and build on regional health initiatives already underway among health facilities and agencies in Indiana and nearby counties.
In addition, it would benefit the region economically and help generate new enrollment potential for IUP, Pittman said.
“There has been a lot of investment by the leadership of the university, we’ve seen private sector investment, and I think it’s time the commonwealth steps up and make an investment as well,” Pittman told TribLive.
Money set aside for the college are economic development dollars in the state’s 2023-24 budget.
Right now, the commitment is for one year, but Pittman said he hopes the state will “be able to repeat this investment for the next few years until the school is fully operational as far as accepting students.”
The money is in addition to what IUP already receives from the state and would not impact other campus programs.
It is the largest contribution to the project announced since IUP trustees in December 2022 authorized exploration of a complex, multi-year endeavor.
Duquesne University, which announced plans for its osteopathic college of medicine in summer 2019, officially opened its new school this month and plans to enroll its inaugural class in July.
“Senator Pittman’s leadership in securing this funding demonstrates both his commitment to the citizens of Pennsylvania and his confidence in IUP’s ability to educate the next generation of physicians that rural Pennsylvania so desperately needs and deserves,” Trustee Chair Sam Smith said in a statement Wednesday.
Earlier Wednesday, IUP trustees approved an update to the university’s Long-Range Facilities Master Plan.
The document identifies a renovated and expanded Sally Johnson Hall near the Oak Grove as a potential site.
Johnson Hall currently houses the Department of Safety Sciences and Department of Nursing and Allied Health, said IUP spokeswoman Michelle Fryling. The building has classrooms, faculty offices, testing labs, and several simulation labs.
The plan indicates potential moves by those departments into nearby buildings, but Fryling said it’s too soon to definitively discuss relocation.
“All of the work we are doing is part of the process of continued exploration of establishing a proposed college of osteopathic medicine,” she said. “The hiring of the founding dean was the first step toward accreditation, work to secure funding is continuing, etc.”
In November, IUP announced it had hired Rose from Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences in Yakima, Wash. It next plans to seek accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA).
The state investment comes on top of earlier donations to the proposed college, among them $1 million from an IUP alumnus and $500,000 from the university’s Alumni Association.
The facilities plans includes a wide range of potential projects, from enhanced pedestrian flow on campus to improved dining services to establishing a new “front entrance” to campus.
It also includes an examination of the university’s footprint and demolition of buildings, given a surplus of 508,000 square feet in building space anticipated this year given enrollment declines since 2010.