NATCHEZ &045; The signing of a bill forwarding up to $7.2 million to Alcorn and Mississippi Valley state universities will mean big things for Alcorn’s School of Nursing, said the dean of the Natchez-based school.

Gov. Ronnie Musgrove on Monday signed a bill to free up money, which will be split by the two schools, from the Ayers desegregation case.

Alcorn will use the funds to improve its nursing, teacher education, math and sciences and computer science programs.

Since the bill took effect immediately, School of Nursing Dean Dr. Frances Henderson is already compiling a budget for the $600,000 that division of Alcorn will receive.

That amount includes $200,000 to expand services at the Family Health Clinic at Alcorn’s Natchez campus.

&uot;We’ll do more work with patients with diabetes, and we also want to hire a second full-time nurse practitioner,&uot; Henderson said Tuesday.

Dr. Clinton Bristow, president of Lorman-based Alcorn State, said the money allows the historically black university to &uot;hit its diversity objectives.&uot;

The campus in Lorman is 10 percent non-black, while the Vicksburg campus is about one-third non-black.

The Natchez campus, with programs in nursing and business administration, is about 50 percent non-black, Bristow said.

&uot;We’re extremely pleased,&uot; Bristow said about the release of the money.

&uot;This is a great opportunity for Alcorn State University to expand to meet the needs of southwest Mississippi,&uot; he said, adding that it is his goal for the school to become &uot;the&uot; university for this part of the state.

And Bristow agreed that the money is important to expand Natchez’s nursing programs.

With the area’s high Medicare population, having such services available to the public is more important than ever, Henderson said.

With an aging population comes a need for more geriatric nurse practitioners, so Alcorn will also use some of the funds to expand its post-master’s program to train more of such professionals.

The university will expand its teacher education program, because more nursing instructors are needed to alleviate the nationwide nursing shortage. It will also expand its &uot;RN-to-BSN&uot; program &045; which caters to nurses who want to pursue bachelor’s degrees in that field.

In all, the Alcorn School of Nursing hopes to add four new faculty members in order to accommodate more students in above programs.

Last but not least, computer equipment will be bought and technical assistants hired for the school’s online courses.

Kerry Whipple contributed to this report.