Manchester marks completion of Fort Wayne campus expansion
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After more than a year of construction, Manchester University is celebrating the completion of a nearly $20 million expansion of its Fort Wayne campus.
The project added more than 32,000 square feet of space to the university’s health science hub, including an interprofessional clinic, physical therapy teaching labs, and a nursing simulation and skills laboratory.
Manchester is also naming the walk-in clinic at the facility, open to everyone in the community, after former President Dave McFadden, who retired last year and led the effort to bring the expanded facility to life.
Current President Stacy Young told Inside INdiana Business the expansion was necessary as the Fort Wayne facility had simply run out of space.
“Initially that building was built just for our pharmacy program, and adding these new programs and has was taxing our space a little bit,” Young said. “We had the opportunity to grow our space right there on on that same campus, and so that’s exactly what we did. They were able to do a wonderful job of incorporating our old with our new, and so we just now have one big, beautiful space.”
The expanded facility at 10627 Diebold Road also features additional research and classroom spaces, as well as multiple collaboration areas for students, the university said.
Young said the expansion was designed with interdisciplinary collaboration in mind.
“One of the big things we’re trying to push is that our students together have that interdisciplinary focus where, when they’re talking about a patient or working with the patient, that they work together just like you would when you’re out in clinical practice,” she said. “So these collaborative spaces where the pharmacists can work with the nurses who can work with the physical therapists are something that we really tried to make sure we built into the new spaces.”
In a December 2022 interview with Inside INdiana Business, McFadden said the goal of the Fort Wayne campus is to help grow the health sciences workforce, saying the field is especially understaffed in northeast Indiana.
“Anything that we can do to help fill those needs in hospitals and care centers, we want to do,” McFadden said.
The facility is located on the southeast corner of the Parkview Regional Medical Center campus, and McFadden said the university was working with Parkview Health to place its graduates into Parkview’s system.
“They offer opportunities for nursing students in the region to work part-time for them while they’re in school and then offer loans that are forgiven if they are able to start working for Parkview,” he said. “So, for us, it’s a hand-in-glove relationship. We know that they need the kind of students that we’re graduating, and we know that we can prepare students well for serving in a rural and regional community like this.”
Young said Manchester has been leaning into experiential learning for its undergraduate students, something that has been in increasing demand from students.
“We’ve revamped our core curriculum, so that they all meet high-demand skills that employers desire,” she said. “And so my hope is that we can offer even more of our undergrad programs at the Fort Wayne campus, and that that will be another space to do that. We’re also getting into the adult market, so adults could pop in there.”
Young added that the Fort Wayne facility could potentially offer additional programming in areas such as business, exercise science and education in the future.
“The sky’s the limit at our Fort Wayne location and just really complimentary to our North Manchester location.”
