Border Belt Independent
By Morgan Casey
Over a dozen Fayetteville State University School of Nursing students on Tuesday made their way to the front of Seabrook Auditorium’s front lobby. They gathered around Darrell Allison, the university chancellor, and a display easel covered in a black cloth for a big announcement.
One student’s jaw dropped when Allison peeled back the fabric to reveal a giant check for $2 million from Cape Fear Valley Health to the university. And applause rang out from the crowd when the School of Nursing’s new name, Cape Fear Valley School of Nursing, was declared.
“Today’s announcement launches Fayetteville State University’s commitment to doubling our students in the nursing program and the joint partnership of Cape Fear to launch new programs with the strengthening pipeline opportunities to Cape Fear Valley Health and beyond,” Allison said in his remarks. “Why is that? Because this region, this state, they need us.”
The donation will go toward the expansion of the School of Nursing’s programming and scholarships for nursing students. FSU leadership and the North Carolina Board of Nursing are working to build the nursing program’s capacity, hire additional faculty and expand lab and classroom space to accommodate the influx of students.
Other programs at the university impacting health care, like business, information technology and social work, will also receive some of the donation’s funds, Allison told CityView.
The donation is the second Cape Fear Valley Health has made to FSU this year. The other was a $900,000 commitment to help build the university’s new health and wellness facility.
Cape Fear Valley Health is investing in the university to improve health outcomes in the region, Michael Nagowski, Cape Fear Valley Health CEO, said to the crowd of local and state elected officials, health care professionals and educators, and nursing students.
“I’m here to tell you hospitals run on nursing,” he said. “I love my doctors, and I love my pharmacists. I love my housekeeping. I love them all. But it’s nurses who are at the bedside 24/7/365. Make no mistake here: Nurses deliver the majority of care that’s delivered at the health system.”
Nursing shortages have plagued the state for over half a century, according to NC Health News. Today, one in eight registered nursing positions is unfilled in the state, according to a new report from the NC Health Talent Alliance, a partnership of public and private agencies focused on filling the state’s health care gaps.
Southeastern North Carolina produces a high number of nurses between programs at FSU, Methodist University, UNC-Pembroke and several community colleges. Enrollment in FSU’s nursing program rose by about 16.5%, from 844 to 984, from 2023 to 2025.
However, the region still needs hundreds of nurses to meet demand because many are leaving to practice elsewhere in the state and country, the NC Health Talent Alliance report found. Since 2022, 482 FSU nursing program graduates have gone on to serve North Carolina communities. About a dozen FSU nursing students are working as interns at the Cape Fear Valley Health Medical Center in Fayetteville, Nagowski said.
By creating more clinical opportunities for students at Cape Fear Valley Health, the health system hopes to grow its own nurses who understand, love and want to stay in this community, Chaka Jordan, vice president of marketing and communications for Cape Fear Valley Health, told CityView. The hope, she said, is that FSU nursing students can interact early with the health system and see that it is a great place to start their careers.
“The naming of the School of Nursing goes beyond just a name on a building,” Nagowski said to the packed auditorium lobby. “It’s about integrating the educational efforts of these leading institutions and working together to generate and to shape the next generation of nurses. This is an investment in our future teammates.”
Peter Hans, University of North Carolina System president, floated more funding for FSU’s nursing program in his ceremony remarks. Last year, Fayetteville State received over $2 million from the UNC system to expand the program, a step in addressing what Hans said was the “historical underinvestment” of the university.
The grants, part of the UNC system’s Health Care Workforce Expansion Initiative, totaled $29 million and were allocated to 12 public universities. They came from the North Carolina General Assembly’s 2024 budget.
“The legislature has really backed us up on this idea that we’ve got to produce more nurses,” Hans said. “I anticipate, before I leave today, that we’ll have a little bit more dedicated to you.”
The General Assembly also allocated $55 million in 2023 to community colleges across the state to expand their nursing and other health-related programs. Fayetteville Technical Community College received $1.5 million to support its nursing and respiratory therapy programs and launch a new cardiovascular technician program.
In his ceremony speech, North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall reemphasized his commitment to continue expanding FSU and other universities’ nursing programs with the help of state dollars.
“I can tell you that on the State House side, one of the things that we are very interested in continuing to do is expanding programs like the School of Nursing here at Fayetteville State,” he said. “We need more nurses all across North Carolina, especially in rural North Carolina, where folks often have to drive a long way to get health care.”
Hall also emphasized the need for more doctors in the state, which could be alleviated by Cape Fear Valley Health’s partnership with another local institution, Methodist University. The Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine is set to accept its first class of medical students in July 2026.
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the News Foundation of Greater Fayetteville.
