In Nussbaum, there are mannequins in the hospital beds.
Those mannequins are part of Taylor University’s newly established nursing program which started in Spring 2025. Hannah Haynes is the simulation and lab coordinator for the nursing department and part of the nursing faculty.
Haynes graduated in 2011 from Taylor with her undergraduate in Biology. She then did her second degree of nursing at Emory University.
She loved Taylor as a student and knew if she wanted to teach nursing, she wanted to come back to Taylor. She was in the allied health concentration, and Jan Reber, professor of biology and allied health advisor, who is now her colleague, was her advisor at the time.
“It's been really exciting to get to start at the beginning and help evolve the program,” Haynes said.
In the simulation labs, students get three-hour sessions to learn hands-on nursing skills. They start with simpler tasks, like making hospital beds and mastering basic techniques. As they progress they practice more technical procedures, like sterile dressing changes.
During their fundamentals and health-assessment classes, they also learn full head-to-toe assessments which include checking bone, muscle and brain systems, so they get a broad foundation before moving into deeper skills.
When it comes to simulation, students move upstairs to hospital-style rooms, where they work in small teams around either a mannequin or a standardized patient (an actor). Students in the room work on assessing or caring for the “patient,” while Hayes watches and later gives feedback.
In the rooms there are a variety of different kinds of mannequins with different functions. Some mannequins are more similar to mannequins in stores, while others can move, cry and even move their head according ot the movement of the students.
It is a safe, hands-on learning experience that lets them practice procedures, or even emergency scenarios, without risk to real patients. It also introduces them to the physical setting of a real hospital.
“They can get some hands-on experience and learn really what that feels like, the adrenaline, all of that while being in a safe environment where they're not going to kill anybody or hurt anybody,” Hayes said.
One of the things Haynes enjoys most about her role is that she gets to build everything from scratch. Because the program and simulation lab are brand new, she has room to be creative: designing stations, organizing supplies and figuring out how to make the lab feel as real and personal as possible.
For example, she was able to create fake wounds that were stitched up in her kitchen using hot glue. She is not following someone else’s footsteps, which means she gets to help create a nursing program uniquely shaped for Taylor’s mission.
Haynes says the most meaningful part of her work is the chance to integrate faith into every layer of the classroom and lab.
“It’s very different when you don’t have that piece,” she said, remembering her own experience in a secular nursing school.
Now, she brings that spiritual grounding into simulations, reflections and even patient-care discussions, helping students see each person as created in God’s image.
Stepping into Taylor’s new nursing program has been both a challenge and a privilege for Hayes, especially as she helps build it from the ground up. But for her, the heart of the work remains simple: preparing students to be excellent nurses who carry both skill and compassion into every room they enter.
“That’s really what I hoped to see,” she said.
Seeing students live out compassion in labs, simulations and clinicals, reminds her why she returned to Taylor in the first place.
