As of January 2026, the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) received a gift of $1.5 million from the University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC) to help expand faculty for UTEP’s nursing and health sciences programs.
Texas is facing a national shortage of healthcare professionals. According to Texas Tech Health El Paso’s Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing, Texas is projected to have a shortage of 60,000 nurses by 2030. The $1.5 million gift is to help ease this shortage, aiming for UTEP to graduate 400 nursing students and 45 occupational therapy (OT) students per year by 2028.
According to the Dean of School of Nursing, Leslie Robbins, Ph.D., over the next three years, UTEP is projected to hire six nursing faculty and three OT faculty in the health sciences. Nursing will have more class sections, moving from one to possibly three, keeping a manageable number of students per class, including clinicals, which typically allow only a certain number of students per clinical section.
“It allows us to deliver it [nursing program] to more students who want to be nurses,” Robbins said. “It’s expanding the people that we hire to help us by being able to account for more students. We will have more OTs in the community and more bachelor’s RNs in the community.”
To increase enrollment in the nursing program and help alleviate the nursing shortage, freshmen do not need to apply to nursing school to become a nursing major. If students meet their milestones, they will be eligible to graduate with a BSN in nursing. UTEP is the only program in El Paso to offer that, but it needs more faculty to keep the program running.
“Everything else you have ranking and scoring, and you’re competing for so many seats, we don’t have you do that,” Robbins said. “You compete against yourself to make sure you keep meeting the standards, and having more faculty is allowing us to do that.”
Mia Alanis, a junior nursing student, believes that this expansion will improve the quality of education provided and offer more opportunities for nursing students.
“It’s really exciting to know that the nursing program is getting bigger, I feel like it’s going to give us more opportunities,” Alanis said. “I feel like this is always a big need for any major we have here; the more money we get in, the more students are able to join.”
Not only will this expansion benefit nursing, but also occupational therapy. The faculty increase is also set to improve teaching and enhance research opportunities, exposing students to innovative methods.
William Roberts, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor in the department of occupational therapy, said UTEP’s OT program is specifically designed to serve El Paso.
“It’s a unique opportunity for us to educate and to train future occupational therapists who are from here,” Roberts said. “As we bring in more research faculty, there will be more presence of faculty, students and community-based research that people will see. There are already ongoing efforts to increase awareness of our programs and increase philanthropy.
The goals for this expedition are to promote long-term growth, increase community awareness and advocate for further funding; all aligning with El Paso’s community health needs.
Mia Colmenero is layout editor and may be reached at [email protected]