MONTCLAIR -- With demand surging for registered nurses with bachelor's degrees, one of New Jersey's largest universities is adding a new nursing school.

Montclair State University announced Wednesday it has appointed the founding dean of a new School of Nursing scheduled to open in the fall.

Janice Smolowitz, currently a senior director at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, will take office next month, university officials announced.

The nursing school will open in the fall with a "RN to BSN" degree program, which is designed for current registered nurses to earn a bachelor of science degree. Other degree programs are scheduled to begin rolling out in 2017, campus officials said.

"The practice of nursing is all about creating teams to promote health," Smolowitz said in a statement. "Montclair State understands that nursing education should reflect that goal. I'm excited to be able to use my expertise to help the School of Nursing provide an education that will meet health care needs both today and tomorrow."

The new nursing school comes as colleges and universities across New Jersey are scrambling to set up programs to help working registered nurses quickly upgrade their diplomas and two-year nursing degrees to bachelor of science, or BSN, degrees.

Under new recommendations from the Institute of Medicine, an influential non-profit group that advises the government and industry on health issues, many hospitals and medical institutions are requiring most or all of their registered nurses to hold bachelor's degrees within the next decade. That has sent many working nurses back to school and increased demand for nursing schools.

Rutgers, Fairleigh Dickinson, Kean and Seton Hall are among the nearby universities that already have nursing schools. Under Montclair State's current nursing program, biology students can earn a bachelor's degree in science from Montclair and a master's in nursing from Seton Hall through a partnership between the two schools.

The new nursing school will eventually allow Montclair State to offer its own nursing major for undergraduates.

Montclair State officials said they are renovating Partridge Hall, a 50,000-square-ft. academic building near the student center, to house the new nursing school. The plans include an anatomy lab, a mock quarantine room, high-tech simulation labs with computerized mannequins posing as patients to help train nursing students.

"There continues to be both a regional and a national severe shortage of qualified nurses in a health care environment that is undergoing radical changes," said Susan Cole, Montclair State's president. "Our nursing program has the significant advantage of being able to align itself fully with the new directions of the profession without the burdens of a legacy program."

Smolowitz, the new dean, is currently serving as the senior director of education, professional practice and research at Mount Sinai Hospital. She previously held positions at Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Smolowitz will earn $230,000 annually as nursing dean, Montclair State spokesman Andrew Mees said.

Montclair's new nursing schools will be a few miles away from Seton Hall's new medical school, which is scheduled to open in the fall of 2017 on the former site of the Hoffmann-LaRoche pharmaceutical company on Route 3 on the Clifton-Nutley border.

Kelly Heyboer may be reached at kheyboer@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KellyHeyboer. Find NJ.com on Facebook.