Frequently asked questions
What is the real story behind the College of Medicine consolidating in Saginaw?
CMU’s College of Medicine has the opportunity to expand and consolidate all four years of medical education into a new building to be designed in Saginaw. Over 14 years ago, when CMU decided to start the College of Medicine, they built two facilities to accommodate a class size of 64 students: one building in Mt Pleasant for first- and second-year students and one in Saginaw for years three and four to be in proximity to teaching hospitals. With strong demand from applicants, the class size has been 104 students per year. We remain at 104 students per class in the first and second years without the capacity to increase the class size and support our mission. Best practices in medical education now require that first- and second-year students receive basic science as well as clinical experiences early, which we cannot provide in the current Mt. Pleasant facility. Our clinical campus is a 60-minute drive from our main campus - the farthest distance between sites of any medical school in the country. Saginaw provides sufficient hospital beds/patient encounters, residency programs, and the diversity of medical specialties to deliver the required experiences to our students. With larger facilities, CMU can educate even more physicians to serve the critical health care needs of the rural and underserved counties in Michigan, the core mission of the College of Medicine and a key goal in CMU’s new Strategic Plan. We believe this decision will elevate CMU’s reputation statewide and nationally.
Why consolidate the program in Saginaw?
Since its inception, the College of Medicine has had strong and long-term affiliation agreements with hospitals, physicians, and the VA in Saginaw. The expansion and consolidation into a larger facility in Saginaw allows CMU to increase the number of medical students to 125 students per class, a 20% increase, in three to five years after opening and ultimately a 45% increase to 150 in medical school enrollment from today's level; institute current best practices for educating medical students; and provide greater prospects for clinical rotations for its medical students.
This is in part because of the larger College of Medicine Building, but also because of the number of hospital beds and clinical rotations in Saginaw, as well as the number of faculty and residents in Saginaw that educate medical students. Presently, we have approximately 140-150 third- and fourth-year students training in Saginaw at any one given time. Saginaw has the necessary medical, surgical, and psychiatric beds; operating rooms and surgical centers; FQHCs (Federally Qualified Health Centers), a VA hospital, etc., as well as faculty and residents to educate third- and fourth-year students. CMU has a state-of-the-art Simulation Center in Saginaw that allows us to train our students based on the best educational standards nationally. We anticipate welcoming our first cohort to the new College of Medicine building for the start of classes in the fall of 2028.
How are you going to pay for it?
A CMU capital fundraising campaign, supported by CMU but undertaken by CMU College of Medicine and local stakeholders, is underway to raise $200 million from new donors, debt-free to CMU. $100 million will be earmarked for construction and maintenance of the new College of Medicine building in an area of Saginaw known as the Medical Diamond, and $100 million earmarked for other critical purposes including scholarships, education, research, and continued growth in the region. Plans are to raise $15 million of the $200 million to support health-related initiatives on CMU’s Mt. Pleasant campus. No funds from the University’s operating budget will be used for this project. The City of Saginaw is investing $30 million to develop the necessary infrastructure in the Medical Diamond area that will be of great benefit for the planned new CMU College of Medicine building.
What’s going to happen in Mount Pleasant?
$15 million of the $200 million CMU capital campaign coming from CMU College of Medicine supporters will be invested in CMU Mount Pleasant to fuel growth in critically needed health care-related educational programs. (The proposed new investment in our Mt. Pleasant main campus is an equally unprecedented opportunity to leverage growth in Mt. Pleasant with capital from outside our community.) The College of Medicine will maintain its basic science research laboratories and technicians on the CMU campus. Clinical services in Mount Pleasant are not affected by this initiative. We are confident that the growth in enrollment into other in-demand health disciplines will significantly offset the relocation of 208 students, which currently comprises only 1.4 percent of the university’s 14,400 students.
The Mount Pleasant community believed in and supported the establishment of a new College of Medicine some 14 years ago. Because of your support, the College of Medicine has grown and outgrown its current facility and is unable to provide our students with world-class medical education in our current situation. However, against these odds, CMU’s College of Medicine was ranked by U.S. News and World Report for achieving our stated mission of preparing physicians to serve the health care needs of rural and underserved communities.
We have the Mount Pleasant community to thank for its support!
Quotes and testimonials
“We are thrilled that the County and State are supporting our vision to have comprehensive medical education and health care services, providing access to our citizens.”
Tim Morales, Manager
City of Saginaw
“The County has worked closely with the City, Saginaw Future, and the Chamber to bring this vision to reality. We are making great progress towards a healthier Saginaw.”
Christopher Boyd, Chair
Saginaw County Board of Commissioners
“We are proud to be part of expanding health care access in this region. We continue to explore our role in Saginaw, building upon existing operations and strengthening existing relationships with health care systems and providers.”
George Kikano, Executive Vice President for Health Affairs and Dean
Central Michigan University College of Medicine
“Improving health outcomes in Saginaw requires an ‘all-in’ mentality by different education, public health and medical institutions throughout the region. The Medical Diamond has tremendous potential to leverage existing and new assets to truly make a difference in the health of Saginaw and surrounding communities.”
Christina Harrington, MPH, Health Office
Saginaw County Health Department
“By focusing on an economically distressed region of the country that is in desperate need of good jobs in key growth sectors, such as health care, tourism, hospitality, and professional services, this project brings great promise not only to Saginaw but to the entire region.”
Tom Miller, CEO
Saginaw Future
“The economic and social impact of The Medical Diamond will be felt in Saginaw and throughout the state. By nurturing both health and prosperity, we signal the rebirth of both a city and a region, impacting the well-being of existing and future generations.”
Ken Horn, Former Senator and Chair
Michigan Senate Economic & Community Development Committee
Construction milestones
Fundraising milestones
College of Medicine seeks to grow, strengthen programs
As demand for medical education and health care grows in Michigan and nationally, Central Michigan University’s College of Medicine is pursuing a plan to expand its programs and consolidate into a new home as part of the Medical Diamond Project in Saginaw, Michigan. Currently, first- and second-year medical students are based on CMU’s Mount Pleasant campus, while the majority of third- and fourth-year students are based in Saginaw.
The Medical Diamond Project is a collaborative effort led by a committee of Great Lakes Bay Region partners. Situated along the riverfront in Saginaw, the project is anchored on two sides by Covenant and Ascension St. Mary's hospitals and is scheduled to include several other public and private partners. Local governments in the area have already secured over 30 million dollars in state funding to support the necessary infrastructure for the project.
The College is beginning to raise the funds necessary to expand its programs and relocate its first two years of education to Saginaw. With the largest population and most hospital beds in the Great Lakes Bay Region, Saginaw offers the greatest number of potential patient interactions for our learners. The hospitals and physicians in the area already support most of the clinical teaching for the College.
And, while medical education would shift to be part of the new Medical Diamond Project, our basic science research facility and labs which house neuroscience research and other federally funded research initiatives would remain on the CMU Mount Pleasant campus.
Increasing demand for medical care and education
Each year, the CMU College of Medicine receives thousands of applications from interested students. In 2024, more than 8,000 applicants vied for the 104 spaces available in the coming year’s cohort. Statewide and throughout the Midwest region, demand for physicians is on the rise, especially in rural and historically underserved communities. Consistent with the College of Medicine’s mission, most medical students admitted call Michigan home.
“72 of Michigan’s 83 counties are currently considered health professional shortage areas,” said Dr. George Kikano, dean of the CMU College of Medicine and executive vice president for health affairs. “And, as more than a third of Michigan’s practicing physicians plan to retire within the next decade, the shortage will get worse without swift action and investment.”
With student demand and community need on the rise, the College must strengthen and expand its programs to meet its core mission, Kikano said.
A charge from CMU Trustees
In early 2022, the CMU Board of Trustees formed a Health Care Special Committee to examine CMU’s current and potential contributions to health care within the state of Michigan and throughout the Great Lakes Bay Region. Later that year, following a report from the committee, the Trustees approved recommendations to increase the capacity and strengthen the impact of CMU’s health professions and medical education programs.
Following this directive, in 2023, CMU began discussions with community partners throughout the region to identify opportunities for growth. One of the options discussed was a presence in the Medical Diamond Project, a collaborative effort led by the City of Saginaw, County of Saginaw, Saginaw Future Inc., the Saginaw Chamber of Commerce and other partners.
In late summer 2023, together with President Davies and Dr. Kikano sent an email to faculty and staff, introducing the idea that the university was considering a possible shift of the College of Medicine to the Medical Diamond in Saginaw.
The need for expansion
“The current Mount Pleasant facility for the College of Medicine was built to accommodate a cohort size of roughly 60 students, and we are currently admitting classes of 104 students,” Kikano said.
“Because we have outgrown our space, our students are split between campuses. This separation is not a best practice, and we are losing opportunities for peer-to-peer education and training.”
In addition to the medical education taking place in Saginaw, there are several other CMU College of Medicine and CMU Health clinics, buildings and programs in the area. CMU’s medical education building on Stone Street is adjacent to Covenant Hospital, and the CMU Women and Children’s Center.
Also in Saginaw, CMU Medical Education Partners is a collaborative organization between CMU, Covenant HealthCare and Ascension St. Mary’s Hospital (soon to be MyMichigan Health) that manages Graduate Medical Education (GME) Programs and a growing footprint of clinical services. GME programs have existed in Saginaw since 1947, and today CMU Medical Education Partners has more than 170 residents per year in eight accredited specialty programs. Faculty and residents in these programs are essential to the education and mentorship of our medical students.
Based on the need to bring medical education back together in one location, and considering CMU’s existing presence in the region, the CMU Board of Trustees passed a resolution at their December 2023 meeting that commits the university to begin fundraising efforts to support a consolidation in Saginaw.
Committed to Mount Pleasant
Kikano said that while medical education and training would move to the new building in Saginaw, many important programs of the CMU College of Medicine would remain in Mount Pleasant.
The space currently occupied by the College of Medicine on campus would also remain in use and would allow expansion and development of new healthcare education programs, according to CMU President Bob Davies.
“With the growing needs for health care in our region, we are looking to expand other health professions programs as well,” Davies said. “Programs like physician assistant, nursing, physical therapy, athletic training and others will be able to grow into those spaces.”
CMU to raise millions to support consolidation of medical school
To realize the success of the College of Medicine’s expansion and consolidation in Saginaw, a fundraising goal of $200 million has been set. Included within that goal are funds for medical student scholarships and research, as well as support for other health related programs at CMU.