BRAWLEY — San Diego State University-Imperial Valley’s School of Nursing has received a $500,000 donation that will benefit students enrolled in the school’s Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Sciences in Nursing program, according to a press release. 

The gift, donated by Carolyn and Cliff Colwell, will help address multiple priorities within the program.

The Colwells, both of whom have careers in medicine, said they want to address the critical nursing shortage in the region and its ripple effects on health disparities, the release states. The five-year donation is unrestricted ― an unusual feature for an amount so high ― meaning SDSU-Imperial Valley can use it to meet the needs of the program.

“We love the idea of being able to train nurses to not only take care of patients, but to really move the profession forward,” Carolyn Colwell said. “We both feel the profession of nursing has a lot to offer in helping with the financial as well as the health care needs of the population.”

The nursing program will graduate the first 10 students of an accelerated pre-licensure program, created in 2022, to help meet the demand. The accelerated schedule cuts a year off the normal time-to-degree by holding classes over the normally dormant summer months; students in the first cohort will complete their requirements in August.

“Our motive within the School of Nursing has always been to ‘grow our own nurses’ and guide our students to launch their careers in Imperial Valley,” said Karen Macauley, director of SDSU-Imperial Valley’s School of Nursing. “Many of our own graduates have come back to SDSU to teach and mentor upcoming nurses. This donation will help our program further our support toward our students and our capacity for them to launch their careers and serve their communities.”

The Colwells, who met while both studying at the University of Michigan School of Medicine in 1959, established their gift after a visit to Imperial Valley last year led by University Relations and Development and the College of Health and Human Services.

Carolyn Colwell practiced nursing in Ann Arbor, Michigan and New York City, among other locales, as the couple moved around for their respective educations. When they settled in San Diego, she taught at SDSU in San Diego for 28 years beginning in 1971.

Cliff Colwell was an orthopedic surgeon who has worked in Los Angeles County, at an evacuation hospital for soldiers wounded in Vietnam, and for the San Diego Padres, including at their spring training program in Yuma. He was the first orthopedic surgeon at Scripps Green Hospital in La Jolla, and continues to run a stem cell lab.

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