The UVA Hospital School of Nursing was established in 1901 to provide the newly established UVA Hospital with an economical and effective nursing workforce. Until 1955, the student nurses who trained in the hospital-based Diploma program provided much of the nursing care in UVA Hospital. In 1956, the UVA School of Nursing was established as an autonomous and independent school in the University and the first dean of nursing was appointed. Between 1950 and 1966, the SON offered both the Diploma and Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) programs. The Diploma program closed after the last class of students graduated in 1968. From 1928 through 1953, the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education, housed in UVA’s Department of Education, admitted students (who were already Registered Nurses) to the BS in Nursing Education (BSNEd) program; the final students graduated from the BSNEd program in 1954. In 1972, graduate nursing education began at the School of Nursing, with the launch of the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) program that year. The PhD in Nursing program opened in 1982, and the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program opened in 2007. (For more about the history of UVA School of Nursing’s first 100 years, read Barbara Brodie, Mr. Jefferson’s Nurses: The University of Virginia School of Nursing, 1901-2001).

Like the university, UVA School of Nursing began as a segregated institution. From its opening in 1901 until the civil rights era of the 1960s, the School of Nursing excluded the admission of anyone who was not White or female. This shaped access to nursing education, professional advancement, scholarship, and patient care. In 1951, the UVA Hospital, in response to local nursing shortages, collaborated with Black community leaders and the Jackson P. Burley High School, a local Black high school, to establish a Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) program to train Black women and men. The more than 150 graduates of this program went on to desegregate the UVA Hospital and had a major impact on their patients and communities. The School of Nursing, however, did not desegregate until 1968, when Mavis Claytor became the first Black woman to be admitted to the school’s BSN program. She graduated in 1970 and later returned to obtain an MSN in 1985. In 1963, the first male student, Thomas Watters, was admitted to the Diploma program, graduating in 1966. (Find out more about the history of segregation at UVA and its impact on nursing and health care at the Race in Healthcare website).

Nursing students were some of the first female students on UVA Grounds. While in 1920, the university’s Board of Visitors did agree to admit white women as degree-seeking students in the graduate and professional schools, women were largely excluded from UVA until 1970. That year, the university officially enrolled the first co-educational class of students. (Find out more at the History of Women on Grounds virtual tour).