The Health Alliance has pledged a renewable two-year grant to Northern Kentucky University aimed to ease the local shortage of registered nurses.

        The money will allow NKU to increase the number of first-year nursing students from 100 to 125 or 130.

        Those additional undergrads also will be eligible for one or more $3,000 scholarships if they promise to work at alliance hospitals for at least 18 months after graduation and licensing as RNs.

        The hospitals — Jewish, Christ, University, St. Luke and Fort Hamilton — share the national problem of short staffing as evermore alternatives open to RNs.

        An additional $150,000 from the alliance will support salaries for additional clinical nursing faculty to maintain the 6-1 student-teacher ratio.

        Dr. Margaret Anderson, head of the nursing department at NKU, said this is her school's first collaboration of its kind.

        Successful students will earn an associate's degree in nursing. Most work during school and take three years to complete the program.

        Scholarships will be concentrated on first-year classes in 2001 and 2002, Dr. Anderson said, but some will be distributed among current students next month when the spring semester begins.

        Dr. Anderson said 93 percent of her graduates win nursing li censes when they first take the state test and 100 percent eventually earn the vital certification.

        NKU also offers a bachelor's degree in nursing for RNs who want further training.

        Spokeswoman Amy Bomar said this was the first alliance grant to expand a nursing program, although the alliance has helped students at Christ Hospital with scholarships.

        She said NKU and the alliance will evaluate the program after two years and decide whether to continue with another, similar grant or to expand support for the nursing program. “The alliance sees this as a long-term commitment,” she said.

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