BOZEMAN, MT, July 21, 2026 — Montana State University’s (MSU) Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing received a $2.5 million grant this summer that will help outfit state-of-the-art simulation labs at all five of the college’s locations.
The grant from The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust will cover the cost of simulation equipment, furniture and technology in five new nursing education buildings across Montana.
In 2021, a historic $101 million gift from Mark and Robyn Jones funded five new buildings for MSU nursing college campuses in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Kalispell and Missoula. While the Jones gift fully funded construction, additional philanthropic support was needed to operationalize the buildings, including installing simulation equipment, technology and audiovisual systems.
Simulation is a cornerstone of the MSU nursing college curriculum, which requires students to complete 120 hours across the two-year program, or one simulation class a semester. Enabled by the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s grant, the college also plans to significantly expand simulation training to its Doctor of Nursing Practice students training to become family nurse practitioners, psych-mental health nurse practitioners and nurse-midwives. The simulation labs allow nursing students to learn critical thinking in realistic settings – groups of students face an array of patient scenarios and have the chance to make decisions and practice interventions with high fidelity manikins or actors. Students are able to jump in and learn without the fear of harming a real patient or making a mistake. Learning is enhanced by debriefing the scenarios with their instructors and peers.
Each year in Montana, 500-600 new nurses are licensed; approximately half of these newly licensed nurses graduated from MSU as Bobcat Nurses. The Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing currently graduates more than 300 bachelor’s-prepared nurses each year, with more than 75% of those students remaining in state to serve Montana communities. The college is on target to increase this number by 2030 to 400 new bachelor’s-prepared nurses each year.
“We are deeply grateful for the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s support for the simulation infrastructure in our new nursing education buildings,” said Sarah Shannon, dean of Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing. “Their grant will directly advance educational quality at MSU, strengthen the state’s nursing workforce and increase the accessibility of healthcare for all Montanans.”
“Ensuring that rural communities have access to high-quality healthcare begins with investing in the people who provide that care,” said Walter Panzirer, a Trustee of the Helmsley Charitable Trust. “These state-of-the-art simulation labs will help prepare more highly skilled nurses to meet the evolving healthcare needs of Montana’s communities. By supporting innovative training opportunities at Montana State University, we are helping strengthen the healthcare workforce pipeline and building a healthier future for people across the state.”
The nursing college uses simulation labs to supplement or replace increasingly difficult-to-secure clinical experiences, such as pediatric and obstetric clinical rotations, Shannon said.
She noted that the benefits of simulation to students are multifold: the labs are fast paced, eliminating the time a student in a clinical setting may need to wait for a patient to use the bathroom or finish physical therapy, for example. Simulation allows the college to ensure that every nursing graduate has the opportunity to experience both common and rare emergency situations in healthcare. Importantly, the simulation setting also provides students a safe space to make mistakes and learn from them.
Each new simulation lab will be equipped with four life-size manikins: an adult, a 5-year-old child, a maternal manikin capable of simulating labor and delivery, and a newborn. The spaces also include a control room for faculty and a debriefing room where other students can observe in-progress simulations.
Nursing students in Great Falls have been utilizing the new simulation space since fall 2025, when the building opened ahead of schedule. The remaining four nursing buildings and their equipped simulation spaces will be ready for students in Bozeman, Billings, Missoula and Kalispell this fall.
“The Helmsley Charitable Trust’s commitment to rural healthcare is powerfully reflected in this investment,” said Fran Albrecht, CEO and president of the MSU Alumni Foundation. “By supporting advanced simulation training across Montana, this grant directly strengthens the pipeline of highly skilled nurses prepared to serve rural communities. It ensures that students can train for real-world healthcare challenges close to home, ultimately improving access to high-quality care for patients across our state.”
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About the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional efforts in the U.S. and around the world in health and select place-based initiatives. Since beginning active grantmaking in 2008, Helmsley has committed more than $4.6 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. Helmsley’s Rural Healthcare Program funds innovative projects that use information technologies to connect rural patients to emergency medical care, bring the latest medical therapies to patients in remote areas, and provide state-of-the-art training for rural hospitals and EMS personnel. To date, this program has awarded more than $900 million to organizations and initiatives in the states of Hawaii, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and two U.S. Pacific territories, American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. For more information, visit www.helmsleytrust.org.
About the Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing
The Mark and Robyn Jones College of Nursing is a national leader in rural nursing research and is responsive to the evolving health needs of the people of Montana. Since 1937, the college has ensured that Bobcat nurses receive cutting-edge knowledge and clinical experiences rooted in Montana’s rural traditions. Its unique one college, five campus model places students in Billings, Bozeman, Great Falls, Kalispell or Missoula. The college graduates more than 300 students annually from its Bachelor of Science in Nursing program, in addition to offering graduate-level programs that include doctorates in family nurse practitioner, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and nurse-midwifery.
