Asante recently donated $200,000 for the purchase of equipment for the Rogue Community College Health Professions Center, which is currently under construction at the RCC Table Rock Campus. This is in addition to Asante’s original $250,000 gift toward building construction. This totals $450,000 in support for health profession education at RCC.
Judy Basker, executive director of the RCC Foundation, said, “We are so grateful to our community partners, Asante in particular, for their ongoing support for training health care professionals in our region.”
“Access to health care is one of our top priorities,” said Scott Kelly, president and CEO of Asante. “By partnering with RCC on their Health Professions Center, we’re investing in the next generation of health care providers to help build an Asante team of the future to care for the people in our community.”
Teri Smith, RCC’s dean of Health and Public Service, agreed. “Asante and Rogue Community College have maintained a strong partnership that continues to meet the academic needs of students and the industry needs of our community,” she said.
The goal is to ensure students in RCC health care programs are prepared to utilize technology they will see in the workplace. The new Health Professions Center will allow RCC to continue its commitment to serving students in industry-standard settings. “This generous gift will help us purchase the equipment necessary to move them from being successful students to prepared employees,” Smith said.
This state-of-the-art 35,748-square-foot education center, budgeted at $21.25 million, is on schedule to open in fall 2020. It will bring together RCC’s clinical health care programs on one campus and streamline the pathway for local students to get into high-paying career jobs and fill a great need for health care workers in the Rogue Valley.
The center will house all of the college’s clinical health care programs including the associate degree nursing (ADN) program, the signature health care degree at RCC, which boasts a 100-percent placement rate for graduates. For the first time in 30 years, the RCC nursing program will have new classrooms, a basic skills lab and a high-fidelity simulation lab.