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thePeorian.com
At
Methodist College,
pride means more
than a feeling inside,
a sense of accomplishment. Pride
means getting REAL (Respected,
Energetic, Advanced, Learning)
and it’s something this school in
downtown Peoria practices each
day.
Still feeling growing pains as
it becomes more than a nursing
school, Methodist College wants
to become more and more an im-
portant part of the higher educa-
tion mix in the Peoria region, and
pride and getting REAL are tools
that will keep its eyes focused
there, said Dr. Kimberly John-
ston, president of the college.
“
We are going to maintain
Methodist as a health sciences
college as we continue to grow
the number of programs we offer
and, subsequently, the size of
our enrollment. But we intend to
always remain a small college,”
Johnston said.
Now with about 600 students,
Methodist College expects to
eventually maintain an enroll-
ment of 1,000 to 1,500 students,
ranging from recent high school
graduates to older students en-
hancing or changing careers. But
bachelor programs will be health
care related, a niche Johnston
said her school already is fitting
into and one that is important to
central Illinois.
That is why Methodist College
of Nursing became Method-
ist College a year ago, with all
course work being taught within
its walls, including the basic edu-
cation courses needed to fill out
the bachelor program curricula
that students once had to pick up
elsewhere. It recently added an
arts and sciences division.
“
We wanted to make the
change partly because of our mis-
sion of evaluating the needs of
the community and in health care
development. Another reason is
because it isn’t healthy to be a
single-purpose institution. Right
now there is a shortage of nurses
but if the need for nurses would
decline again and we hadn’t
diversified, we would feel it,”
Johnston said.
Noting how health care servic-
es have grown in central Illinois
and the existence of a well-re-
spected and growing University
of Illinois College of Medicine
at Peoria, “It is important we
provide quality education to our
students, most of whom are from
this area and end up staying here
after they graduate, working in
central Illinois,” she said.
Johnston said the school’s
growth will likely mean it will
need to find new or at least more
space in the future. Now housed
in a former Ramada Inn hotel
next to OSF Saint Francis Medi-
cal Center, the school maintains
three floors as residences for
students. Its classrooms are on
three floors and the basement of
building, where the library also
is located. Lab work, including
simulation labs, are at Methodist
Medical Center on the other side
of Interstate 74.
STILL GROWING,
Methodist College excited about future
by Paul Gordon
The Present
