Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the many contributions of Vanderbilt University School of Nursing and its historic Godchaux Hall. Some of Nashville's most talented health care professionals, educators and students will gather today to celebrate a place "where tradition meets innovation,'' the newly renovated Godchaux Hall.

Godchaux Hall was built in 1925 as the dormitory for the 100 students and faculty of the Vanderbilt nursing program. It included classrooms, laboratory space and a library. Since then, it has undergone several name changes and renovations, but last year, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing was awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to improve the space for the first time in thirty years.

Today, Godchaux Hall is a truly innovative place where students from all over the world come to earn advanced nursing degrees and learn the skills they need to care for patients as nurses. An advanced 9-bed "Intervention Lab'' provides a simulated hospital environment and includes state-of-the-art computer equipment, "Sim Man,'' to replicate a human patient. New behavioral labs create space for nursing researchers to work with human subjects outside the laboratory. The increased space also allows Vanderbilt to expand its relationship with community partners like Fisk and Lipscomb Universities whose students can earn Bachelor degrees at Vanderbilt's Godchaux Hall.

The improved learning space at Godchaux Hall will give Vanderbilt the ability to continue its long tradition of excellence in nursing education. I commend Dean Colleen Conway-Welch for her leadership and Vanderbilt University School of Nursing for its achievements in innovation and education. One of the most significant outcomes of today's ribbon-cutting is that it will allow Nashville to combat the nursing shortage our nation faces and continue to provide the best in health care to patients from across Middle Tennessee.

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Jim Cooper
Member of Congress