Montana State University officials joined community members in Kalispell on Tuesday to break ground on the final of five new nursing education facilities under construction around the state.

A $101 million donation from Whitefish couple Mark and Robyn Jones made it possible for the university to launch the building initiative.

The Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing — named in 2021 following the announcement of the couple’s donation — had previously been operating out of leased spaces across the university system’s five campuses. 

Speaking to the assembled crowd at the site of the future facility, Dean Sarah Shannon said the faculty, staff and students couldn’t wait to be in a building with windows.

“It’s a modern educational facility with active learning classrooms, a state-of-the-art simulation center and places for students to study — and it's also going to have windows,” she said to roaring applause. 

“They all get that joke, we’ve been in a basement for many years, so windows are a big, big plus,” she added.

The simulation center will help nursing students develop hands-on skills by using manikins and acting to mimic real-life scenarios. Shannon told the Daily Inter Lake that nursing education has changed and that it’s beneficial for students to learn in an environment that allows more time to think about how to solve the problem at hand. The simulation center will let students work on evidence-based decision making, critical thinking and responding to patient issues, she said.

The new facilities should increase the number of graduating bachelor’s-prepared nurses each year from 300 to 400, according to Shannon, who also said 80% of the college’s graduates stay and practice in Montana. The college will also start offering the state’s only nurse midwifery program in the fall.

The state’s need for nurses is what inspired the donation from Mark and Robyn Jones, founders of Goosehead Insurance Inc. During Tuesday’s ceremony, Montana State University President Waded Cruzado spoke about hearing from the couple that they were interested in establishing a scholarship in honor of friend and member of their construction team Dave Haney, who was diagnosed with cancer while working on their new home. 

“[Mark Jones] went on to say that during the process of this individual being sick, he and Robyn learned that there were no medical schools in Montana and he wanted to talk with me about what resources we could leverage together to enhance health care in the state,” Cruzado said. 

Cruzado said after she and Shannon met with Mark Jones, he asked that they put together a proposal. That developed into a plan to build five new facilities on the university system’s five campuses and introduce a nurse midwifery program. 

Cruzado recalled that Mark Jones told them they “swung for the fences” but he and Robyn were on board with a donation of $100 million. They later added another $1 million when Cruzado briefly mentioned a similar $100 million donation to University of California Davis. 

Mark Jones said he and Robyn had been frequent visitors of the Flathead Valley since childhood, choosing to move to the area several years ago. He said their experience watching Haney go through his cancer diagnosis, which led to his death, inspired them to find ways to support health care in Montana.

“When we learned that there was an opportunity to help, we really wanted to get on that and do what we could,” Mark Jones said. “The hard work is not writing the check, the hard work is building the building, recruiting the faculty, it's working with all of these wonderful students, it's taking care of the people of Montana, and we could not be prouder to associate with all of you.”

The land for the facility was donated to the university by Logan Health Medical Center. Recently appointed co-CEO of Logan Health Billings Clinic Kevin Abel said the new building will have a wonderful education environment and that he’s happy the campus will remain close to the hospital. 

“We have a lot of our senior nurses here and our education department who assisted and taught. And I think the educational component and partnership between our senior nurses … and those types of programs are just so key to developing a strong and mature workforce for our valley,” Abel said. 

Building up facilities on Montana State University’s regional campuses remains important to reach nursing students in all corners of Montana, Shannon said. She said there’s no way the college could educate 400 nurses using only its Bozeman campus — the state’s rural landscape requires this approach for training.

“We need this design for our nursing education,” Shannon said. “Nurses don't learn just in a classroom, they need to be in a hospital environment, public health environment, et cetera. Bozeman just isn't big enough to educate all these nurses.”

She said officials are looking to have the buildings completed and open for classes by fall of 2026. 

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com. 

    Mark Jones speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Montana State University Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing building at Logan Health on Tuesday, April 23. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

   Montana State University President Waded Cruzado speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the college's Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing building at Logan Health on Tuesday, April 23. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Kevin Able, co-chief executive officer at Logan Health-Billings Clinic, speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for Montana State University's Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing building at Logan Health on Tuesday, April 23. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    Sarah Shannon, dean of the Montana State University College of Nursing, speaks during a groundbreaking ceremony for the college's Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing building at Logan Health on Tuesday, April 23. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider