Gwynedd Mercy breaks ground on new health training center that will honor philanthropic alumna

Gwynedd Mercy University is beginning construction on a new training center for its nursing and other health care programs. The 65,000-square-foot facility will have rooms set up to look like patient apartments and doctors’ offices to allow students to practice clinical skills in simulated real-world settings.

On Wednesday, university leaders, students, and other officials held a groundbreaking ceremony at the Montgomery County institution, which is located in Gwynedd Valley. The event kicked off the Catholic university’s 75th anniversary celebration, a period in which Gwynedd Mercy grew from a two-year junior college to a four-year university with graduate offerings, said Deanne D’Emilio, the university’s president.

With the new center, school leaders hope to continue that growth by providing students with high-end training facilities.

“[The] center will build upon Gwynedd Mercy University’s long-standing legacy in professional and health care education by creating a state-of-the-market environment,” D’Emilio said at the event.

Students from nursing, psychology, and a new speech language pathology program will train in the center that is expected to open in winter of 2025.

The facility will cost approximately $23 million, with $10 million coming from the Maguire Foundation, a local philanthropic group that was established by an alumna and her husband.

Through this donation, the new building will carry the name of Frances M. Maguire, who took classes to become a medical secretary at Gwynedd Mercy in the ‘50s and returned to study nursing in the ‘70s. Along with her husband, James Maguire, she founded the Maguire Foundation.

The family and foundation have given more than $25 million to the university over time, D’Emilio said.

Their involvement went beyond writing checks. Frances Maguire would often visit the campus and meet with students in the nursing school before her death in 2020, and James Maguire participated in the planning of the new center.

“On behalf of Frannie, who loved this university, I am honored to be here today,” Maguire told the crowd in brief remarks. “It’s spectacular.”

» READ MORE: Frances M. Maguire, artist, mother, and philanthropist, dies at 84

In addition to the Maguire Foundation gift, the center has received other donations, as well as $1.25 million in grants from the state.

State Sen. Maria Collett, a Montgomery County Democrat and a nurse, helped to secure the state funding. She said Pennsylvania needs the expertise of the students who will train there, given its aging population and ongoing shortages of health care workers. She said the new facility, with simulation labs and new technology, is exciting for the future students who will study there.

“It almost made me want to go back to nursing school,” she said.