Central Michigan University announced Friday they will move their College of Medicine to Saginaw. MyMichigan Health and Covenant HealthCare both donated $40 million. The combined $80 million gift is the largest in the university’s history, CMU officials say.
“They will have a profound and meaningful impact on our College of Medicine, on our university and on this region for generations to come,” said CMU President Neil MacKinnon during a press conference.
The College of Medicine will be renamed the Covenant HealthCare College of Medicine at Central Michigan University. The building housing the school will be located at MyMichigan’s campus in Saginaw with hopes of breaking ground in 2026.
All medical students will be taught there, currently first and second year medical students are educated in Mount Pleasant.
In a press release, Central Michigan University said the move will open up opportunities for collaboration between students and space for clinical opportunities. The Mount Pleasant space was built for 60 students, according to the school. The school's current cohort stands at 104 students.
“This building will allow for the ability to expand our class size in the future,” said College of Medicine Dean Tina Thompson.
MacKinnon said there will be housing assistance for professors and staff at the College of Medicine.
“For those that...we'd be asking them to move, we will provide relocation assistance,” he said in an interview after the press conference.
He added that there were active discussions about housing assistance and other needs for students.
“I think we're still having discussions with that, trying to decide, what we should do,” he said. Dean Thompson is having town halls with faculty, staff and students just to determine what their needs as we think about this move. So, we haven't made a decision yet.”
MacKinnon said the university is still in the planning phase for what will become of the current College of Medicine's facilities in Mount Pleasant. He said the school is expanding its nursing program and looking to expand other programs as well. This fall, CMU welcomed its first cohort of nursing students pursing four-year degrees.
MacKinnon says the university is still designing the new medical school and will take about half a year, and the building process will take around four years.
CMU has raised $90 million of its $100 million goal for the expansion.
In the interest of transparency, we note that this station is licensed to CMU, although our newsroom is editorially independent of the university. Additionally, MyMichigan Health is a sponsor of WCMU. We report on them as we would any other organization.
