GRAND FORKS — Less than a year into her work as dean of the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences and vice president for Health Affairs, Marjorie Jenkins and her team are working to get more North Dakotans into the school, as well as more students in general.

Jenkins said her past jobs have prepared her for the tasks at hand.

“I absolutely love this job,” she said. “I really hope it’s my last job, I love it so much. And I think there will always be exciting things that we’ll be doing here.”

The top project is called North Dakota 85, a program SMHS started in hopes of raising the number of North Dakota residents enrolled in the MD (doctor of medicine) and PA (physician assistant) programs to 85%.

The program is in response to members of the Legislature asking why there are not more North Dakotans at the school, Jenkins said, and it correlates with another SMHS goal: increasing class size over the next five to seven years. Another project that got attention in the Legislature is a future addition to the SMHS building, which Jenkins said will bring more health care programs together on campus.

As part of ND85, SMHS student affairs and admissions staff are traveling the state to high schools, colleges, universities, camps and career fairs to talk about the school and the programs it provides to prospective students.

Emily Evers, of student affairs and admissions, said there have been a few “aha” moments. One was the previous year when she went to a couple schools and heard that some students didn’t know UND had a medical school. It was alarming, she said.

“If you don’t think there is one, then you definitely don’t think you can go to one,” she said. “When I asked them in the classroom, ‘What do you guys think of when you think of UND?’ they say aviation, they say business, they say those things. And I want them to say health care, too.”

Along with traveling across the state, Evers said SMHS is going to get more involved with HOSA (Health Occupations Students of America), an organization with chapters at the high school and university levels.

ND85 came from looking at the lack of North Dakota students in SMHS, Jenkins said. While the school gets about 1,800 to 1,850 applications a year, only about 100 to 105 are North Dakotans. Then, when applications are screened for GPA and MCAT scores and applicants are invited to interview, only about 240-280 are invited.

Every North Dakotan who meets the GPA and MCAT requirements automatically gets an interview. Jenkins said during the past legislative session, a representative asked why the school didn’t have more North Dakotans, to which Jenkins replied, “You should have 90%.”

Texas and South Carolina, where Jenkins held previous jobs, had similar high goals for the number of state residents expected to be in their medical schools. In Texas, the requirement is 90%. In South Carolina, it is about 75%, she said.

Jenkins came back to the school following the legislative session and began having conversations about the lack of North Dakota students. Then came the goal: 85% incoming students in the MD and PA programs should be North Dakota residents.

An addition to the SMHS building, referred to as a health professions collaborative facility in Senate Bill 2286, will be used to bring health care programs together in the SMHS. Jenkins said nursing, dietetics, nutrition and social work will all come to the building, as well as a hospital simulation.

“We’ll all be together,” she said. “They’ll be ready to hit the ground running.”

Otto is the University of North Dakota reporter for the Grand Forks Herald.