CSUMB and Montage Health celebrate $15 million partnership

By Mark Muckenfuss

Leaders of Montage Health and Cal State Monterey Bay celebrated a new partnership on Thursday, April 9, hailing a $15 million gift from the healthcare leader that will expand the university’s nursing program and help address a regional shortage of nurses. 

University and Montage Health officials, along with local dignitaries representing city, county, state and congressional leaders, attended the event, which drew more than 100 people. 

Mike McDermott, MD, CEO of Montage Health, said the gift was “the biggest investment Montage has made in education.”

That investment will allow CSUMB to establish the Montage Health Helen Baszucki School of Nursing to expand future generations of local nurses to care for our community. In addition to renovating existing classrooms and adding state-of-the-art teaching labs, the funding will be used to expand an existing cooperative Bachelor of Science in Nursing program with the Maurine Church Coburn School of Nursing at Monterey Peninsula College, as well as add a four-year pre-licensure BSN program and a Master of Science in Nursing degree.  

The school is expected to significantly address the region’s shortage of licensed nurses. It’s a shortage shared by much of the nation. Training nurses locally, experts say, encourages them to remain in the area as professionals.

CSUMB President Vanya Quiñones called Thursday “an amazing landmark moment for our university” and something that would impact the health and well-being of the Central Coast region in the coming years. 

Montage’s investment, she said, “is a bold statement about what is possible when a community comes together to invest in its future and creates a joint vision of improving access to healthcare for all.

“It allows us to expand our capacity to educate and prepare the next generation of nurses,” she added.

The new funding will bolster more than 100 students in a pre-nursing major who are preparing to apply and enter the BSN program as upper-division students. It will also support the initial 40-student cohort for the in-house BSN program and the 25 students expected in the first MSN cohort, both of which are expected to launch in Fall 2027.

In prepared remarks, McDermott called the investment a “milestone that reflects the very best of what collaboration can achieve.” 

It represents an expansion of an existing relationship that goes back many years. 

“Our long-standing partnership with this university has already shown us the power of working together,” McDermott said. “We’ve seen it in the more than 700 nursing graduates who now serve patients across the tri-county area, many of them at Montage Health … Today, we take that partnership to a new level.

“We look forward to the lives this school will change,” he added, “and the care it will help deliver for decades to come.”

Alyssa Erikson, professor and chair of CSUMB's Department of Nursing, said its establishment is part of a continuing process she’s seen during her 12 years at the university. 

“I think it’s the evolution of what’s been building in this community and with our partners like Montage,” Erikson said. “It shows how we can help each other.”

Debbie Sober, RN, MSN, vice president and chief nursing officer for Montage, echoed those sentiments. She pointed to the fact that Montage has been involved in local nursing education for more than four decades. In 1982, it funded the establishment of the nursing school at Monterey Peninsula College, which has the cooperative BSN program with CSUMB.

“This new school at CSUMB represents the next evolution of that commitment,” Sober said of Montage’s investment in training nurses. “It honors the legacy of the late Helen Baszucki and the Baszucki family, whose dedication to nursing continues to inspire us.”

Phillip Post, dean of the College of Health Sciences and Human Services, told the crowd that the Montage Health partnership and new nursing school speak to the mission of CSUMB. 

“This is exactly what our college is called to do,” Post said. “It also reflects the spirit of our university’s guiding principle — ‘The Strength of Us’ … It is this collective strength — this shared commitment — that allows us to respond to workforce needs, to expand opportunity, and to build healthier communities.”