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Charlotte E. Martin, RN, first superintendent of nurses, UVA Hospital, April 1901 - September 1901.
In April, the UVA School of Nursing was founded at the same time as the UVA Hospital. In need of a nursing staff, the hospital adopted the model used by hospitals across the nation, a hospital-based training program using the Nightingale model. Only white women were admitted to the School of Nursing and it remained a segregated institution with an all-white student body and faculty until the civil rights era.
The first superintendent of nurses was Charlotte Martin, RN. She established the nursing and management services for the hospital and developed plans for a training program. She served for six months.
UVA Hospital in 1901
The University of Virginia Hospital opened under the direction of Paul Barringer to support the university’s medical school and to provide subsidized health care to Virginians. It was designed to uphold white supremacy. Barringer was a leader of the eugenics movement, and the hospital became an academic center for eugenics. The hospital was also a segregated institution, with a separate entrance and basement wards for Black patients, while middle class and wealthy white patients were assigned private rooms on the ground and second floors. Indigent white patents were assigned to open words on the ground floor. The basement wards were not only separate but unequal to the upstairs wards. They had smaller windows and exposed pipes. UVA also located the basement wards next to noisy machine rooms and service areas.
Students nurses in a UVA Hospital ward, c. 1920s
In September of 1901, the new superintendent of nursing, Florence Besley, RN, admitted four students into the new two-year nurses training program. The students, one night supervisor, and Miss Besley provided all patient nursing care in the twenty-bed hospital. Students were given a small monthly stipend ($5) and housed in attic rooms of the hospital.
Besley served as the second superintendent of nursing from 1901–1907. She was responsible for establishing the hospital’s basic management system, which included ordering supplies, assisting physicians developing new clinical services, hiring porters and cooks, admitting patients, and developing a patient record system and hospital fee collection procedure in addition to her tasks as an educator.
The UVA Hospital School of Nursing pin, first awarded in 1903
Three students graduated in 1903 and received the newly designed UVA School of Nursing hospital pin. The UVA Board of Visitors officially noted that the hospital school mission was “to give young women, desirous of acquiring the art of nursing, the same careful and thorough training in their calling as was afforded men studying the science of medicine.” Once they graduated, nurses were employed as private duty nurses caring for people in their homes.
UVA graduates were among the first trained nurses to qualify for the newly developed Virginia state nursing licensure. Virginia was one of the first four states to adopt state nursing licensure laws in 1903.
Nursing students in 1906
The nurse training program was extended to three years. This did not result in increased educational hours for students. Rather, the students spent most of the additional year staffing the clinical wards and serving as head nurses.
UVA Hospital in 1907
In 1905 and 1907, Pavilions Two and Three were added to UVA Hospital and additional nurses students were needed. In 1907, there were thirty students in the program and three classes a year were admitted.
Mary Jane Hurley, RN, became the third Superintendent of Nursing. She convinced Dr. Watts, director of the hospital, to add two registered nurses to the hospital staff.
Senior nursing students and their physician escorts maneuver through the curtsies and bows of the Virginia Reel, c. 1951
The Senior Dance tradition, the Virginia Reel, began. Senior students invited medical faculty to dance the traditional dance with them.
Hurdley added classes in Materia Medica (pharmacology), Chemistry, Anatomy and Physiology, Nursing History, and Dietetics. She also introduced newer nursing techniques in the Nursing Arts course.
Operating room scene, 1913. To the far left is Tabitha Grier, RN, operating room nurse supervisor, who graduated from the UVA nursing program in 1912 and served as superintendent from 1913 to 1916.
Tabitha S. Grier, RN, a UVA graduate, became Superintendent of Nursing.
Varsity Hall, the first student nursing residence located outside of the hospital.
A measles outbreak increased the need for patient beds. Varsity Hall was converted into a nursing student residence.
In 1916, the Steele Wing increased patient capacity to 200 beds and accommodated an Outpatient Department.
Margaret Beaud Cowling, RN became Superintendent. The curriculum was upgraded and admission standards required two years of high school or its substitute. The curriculum revision included the addition of classes in Obstetrics, Gynecology, Pediatrics, Communicable Diseases, Mental/Nervous Diseases, and Venereal Diseases.
The addition of the hospital’s Steele Wing increased bed capacity to 200 and accommodated an Outpatient Department. Even as the hospital expanded capacity, that expansion was focused on serving and preventing the overcrowding of white patients. Black patients continued to be limited to the oldest, worst-maintained open wards in the basement.
The UVA. Nursing Alumnae Association constitution and by-laws
The UVA Nursing Alumni Association was founded.
Isabele Craig-Anderson, acting Superintendent of Nursing, 1917-1920
Isabele Craig-Anderson, RN became acting Superintendent. She had served as assistant superintendent under Cowling, and took charge of the school when Crowling left for Fance, and held the position until 1920.
Nurse assisting injured soldier in main ward of Base Hospital Unit 41
During WWI, the University of Virginia Base Hospital #41 was formed. The unit, comprised of UVA physicians and nurses, served in France. Superintendent Margaret Cowling took a leave of absence to serve as the nursing director of the military hospital. Isabele Craig-Anderson was appointed acting superintendent of nurses at UVA Hospital; promoted to superintendent of nurses (removing acting from title) in April 1919.
A disciplinary incident at UVA Hospital in November 1918 led student nurses to petition the hospital board to discharge Superintendent of Nurses, Isabele Craig-Anderson. The hospital board wrote a stern response to the student nurses, admonishing the students for questioning the authority of Craig-Anderson, reminding them of their duty to submit to the necessary discipline of the hospital, and re-affirming their support of Craig-Anderson.
On April 5, 1919, Superintendent of Nurses, Isabele Craig-Anderson, wrote to Dean of the Medical School, Theodore Hough, sharing with him a proposed curriculum for the nursing school.
Randall Hall
With approximately fifty students in the school, a larger nursing residence was established at Randall Hall.
Margaret Brand Cowling
Margaret Cowling, RN returned as Superintendent, serving in this role until 1924.
In September 1921, the Virginia State Board of Examiners of Nurses sent to UVA Superintendent of Nurses, Mary Cowling, the Revised Curriculum, which included the list of topics, texts, reference books, and recommended schedule for use in their accredited training schools.
The Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia began raising funds to create a graduate nursing program at the University of Virginia. The rationale for doing so included the unavailability of nursing graduate education in the South, and the tendency of southern nurses attending education programs in northern schools never to return to the south. The three-year fundraising drive was led by Agnes Randolph with the goal of endowing a chair of nursing, named in honor of Virginia nurse leader, Sadie Heath Cabaniss.
The State of New York’s State Board of Nurse Examiners identified four school practices they deemed detrimental to the health of Virginia students. The recommendations included reducing the work day from ten to eight hours, limiting night duty assignments to one month, providing students with sick time, and instituting student health records and annual physical exams.
The hospital continued to expand throughout the 1920s, increasing bed capacity from 200 to 300 by 1927.
The McIntire building was added to the hospital, with new wards for Pediatric and Obstetrics patients. The second floor housed the white Pediatric ward and the first floor housed the white Obstetrics ward, while new wards for Black pediatric and obstetrics patients were established in the basement.
The school's enrollment grew to one hundred students. McLeod also initiated a nursing student affiliation program, which enabled nursing students from several Virginia schools to affiliate with UVA for educational experiences lacking at their own hospitals. McLeod also established two post-graduate programs: Operating Room and Nurse Anesthetist.
By 1930, there were 135 nursing students, 12 affiliate students, and 18 graduate nurses working in the UVA Hospital.
Josephine McLeod, Superintendent of Nursing, 1924-1937.
Josephine McLeod, BA, RN was appointed Superintendent of Nurses.
McLeod immediately implemented the recommendations of the State of New York's State Board of Nurse Examiners, upgraded the curriculum, and recruited additional students. Students no longer received stipends; those funds were used to employ more hospital head nurses to supervise students.
A new issue of the nursing students' satirical newsletter was published titled "Night Breezes."
Virginia nursing leader Agnes Dillon Randolph
Agnes Randolph of the Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia presented UVA President Edwin Alderman a $50,000 check to establish an endowed chair of nursing. Faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences expressed concerns about creating a nursing graduate program and admitting women to the University, delaying for two years the establishment of a graduate nursing program.
A new issue of the nursing students' satirical newsletter was published titled "Light Wheezes."
Louise Oates, MA, RN, first chair of the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education, 1928-1952
The Sadie Heath Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education began at the University of Virginia in the Department of Education. It was the first baccalaureate nursing education program in the South. Louise Oates, MA, RN was appointed the first Professor of Nursing and Director of the program. She held the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professorship, the first known endowed nursing chair in the country. The Graduate Nurses Association of Virginia endowed this $50,000 chair.
UVA School of Nursing Class of 1930
During the early 20th century, several faculty and administrators in the University of Virginia School of Medicine were prominent eugenicists, including some of the medical faculty who also participated in the instruction of nursing students. For example, Harvey Jordan and Lawrence Thomas Royster, both medical school faculty, and Edwin Alderman, University President, are featured in the UVA School of Nursing class photo from 1930.
McKim Hall, c. 1936
McKim Hall was built and served as the school and residence for 161 nursing students. Josephine McLeod was instrumental in gaining the UVA Board of Visitors approval for the construction of McKim Hall two years earlier. Ruth Beery was employed to be the school’s first full-time instructor. A probationary class of 51 students enroll in the school.
On April 26, 1932, Stella Hawkins of the University of the State of New York State Board of Nurse Examiners submitted her Report of the Survey of the UVA Hospital School of Nursing to determine if the SON met the requirements for registration by the NY State Board of Examiners. Following her survey, Hawkins concluded that the SON needed to make several adjustments before registration could be granted. These included the need to increase the graduate supervision of student nurses; an increase in laboratory hours; the keeping of statistics records of the clinical facilities available to students; reorganization of the diet kitchen; that all medicine cabinets be kept locked; and improved recording keeping.
Claire Wangan, MA, RN, who lead the UVA School of Nursing from 1937 to 1941, was the first UVA superintendent of nursing to hold a master's degree.
Josephine McLeod left to assume the post of secretary-treasurer of the Virginia Board of Nurse Examiners. Claire M.J. Wangan, MA, RN became the last Superintendent of Nursing.
In November 1939, the UVA Hospital SON submitted its application for accreditation by the National League for Nursing Education. The application included information about the organization, administration, and financing of the school, as well as information about the school's students, curriculum, and clinical facilities. The "Student" section of the application (p. 9) required the school to indicate whether the school admitted men (it did not) or students of color (it did not).
Josephine McLeod, from the Virginia State Board of Nurse Examiners and former UVA Superintendent of Nurses, wrote to Claire Wangen, the current Superintendent of Nurses, arguing for improvements to the facilities for Black pediatric and obstetrics patients.
Nursing students receive anesthesia training, c. 1939.
Wangen sought funds from the UVA School of Nursing Alumnae Association to pay for the National League for Nursing Education (NLNE) accreditation visit. In 1940, the school was granted a conditional accreditation ranking. The school’s NLNE conditional accreditation status marked a significant milestone in its struggle to be seen as an educational institution versus a school primarily viewed as the hospital’s nursing workforce.
Following a recommendation from the NLNE, Wangen increased the pre-clinical portion of the hospital-based diploma program to six months. Many physicians were critical of the school’s accreditation status, complaining that nursing students were being overeducated and spending too much time in the classroom rather than in the hospital caring for patients. UVA physicians rejected the authority of nursing organizations to comment on the education standards of the UVA School of Nursing.
The United States entered World War II.
Virginia Walker, RN, BA, director of nurses and nursing services, 1941-1946.
Claire Wangen resigned as superintendent, frustrated by UVA physicians’ strident demands for more student nursing service for their patients, and ongoing difficulties to increase graduate staff and student enrollment.
Virginia Hassertine Walker, RN, BA was appointed director of the School of Nursing and superintendent of Nursing Services.
Nurses of the 8th Evacuation Hospital.
The University of Virginia 8th Evacuation U.S. Army Hospital was created. Commanded by Colonel Staige Blackford, MD with Captain Ruth Beery heading the nursing division, the hospital unit was staffed by UVA graduates. It served in the European Theater throughout the war. In that unit, Dorothy Sandridge, DIPLO 1942, served as a nurse anesthetist.
The University established a School of Nursing Advisory Committee, following the recommendation of the National League for Nursing Education. The advisory committee was composed of nursing and medical faculty and representatives from the University and community. The nursing advisory committee reviewed issues pertinent to the education of nursing students. This was the first time in the school’s history that the nursing faculty had access to an independent influential group (outside of the hospital physicians) to discuss educational issues.
The U.S.’s entry into World War II drastically altered the number of physicians and graduate nurses available to staff the hospital. Student nurses assumed the major responsibility for keeping the hospital functioning, and married graduate nurses were encouraged to return to nursing.
Several federal initiatives were launched to relieve the nationwide shortage of nurses. This included the provision of funds to nursing schools for student scholarships, the training of nursing volunteers, and for graduate nurse refresher courses to prepare them to return to nursing practice. Walker obtains $20,000 from the federal government for student scholarships and $4,00 from the Kellogg Foundation for student loans.
UVA Hospital and School of Nursing remained segregated institutions: the hospital did not hire Black nurses or physicians, and the School of Nursing did not admit Black students. The hospital did, however, employ Black women, relegating them to the position of "ward maids,” where they assisted nurses, changed linens, and performed essential work supporting the hospital’s clinicians. Among the hospital’s paid staff, they earned the lowest wages and worked the longest hours. On January 16, 26 Black women employed as ward maids staged a walkout after hospital Superintendent Dr. Carlisle S. Lentz refused to accept their petition for higher wages.
The U.S. Congress passed the Bolton Act establishing the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps to help meet the military and civilian need for nurses. Frances Bolton introduced the legislation to Congress in March, and the act became public law on July 1. The purpose of the corps was to create a wartime student nurse reserve to avert the country’s nursing crisis.
The Bishop sisters in their Cadet Nurse Corps uniform during World War II.
UVA School of Nursing became a Cadet Nurse Corps school and 88 percent of its current students opted to become cadets. This meant that after graduation, they were required to serve as registered nurses in a military or community health agency. As compensation for their services, the government assumed all costs for the cadets’ education, uniforms, books, and maintenance. Cadets also received a monthly stipend. By the end of the war in 1945, when the Cadet Nurse Corps ceased enrolling students, 274 of the 293 (94 percent) nursing students admitted to the school since 1943 opted to join the corps.
Kelly House, on University Avenue, housed nursing students from 1944 to 1946.
Enrollment averaged 325 to 350 students and 88% of the students participated in the Cadet Nurse Corps. The ban on marriage for student nurses was temporarily suspended. The School of Nursing rented Page House and Kelly House to use as additional nursing student residences.
Nursing student government began in the school.
On the recommendation of the nursing advisory committee, University President Newcomb appointed a special committee “to study the needs of the Nursing School in relation to a proposed incorporation of the school as part of the University.” The committee was chaired by Dr. George Lawson of the medical school and included members of the nursing advisory committee, University administrators and faculty, and Professor Oates and assistant professor Lois Austin from the Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education. After a year of studying the plans of Walker and her nursing assistant, Roy C. Beazley, to upgrade the school, the committee recommended to the University’s new President Colgate W. Darden, “the establishment of a Collegiate School of Nursing at the University of Virginia.” Before creating the collegiate school, however, the committee recommended the diploma program be strengthened to meet NLNE accreditation standards, and that it “remain open until the enrollment in the college program is sufficient to provide limited service to the University of Virginia Hospital.”
A new issue of the UVA Hospital SON newsletter, The Capsule, was published.
Hill-Burton Act, or Hospital Survey and Construction Act. This act gave hospitals, nursing homes, and other health care facilities federal grants to construct new hospitals and to modernize existing ones, in return for the promise of provision of health services to communities regardless of ability to pay. The act did not, however, mandate desegregation of hospitals and other health care facilities as a prerequisite for obtaining federal funding. Thus, federal money was used to build racially-exclusive hospitals.
School of Nursing catalog photos depict student life in McKim Hall as friendly and social, in comfortable home-like settings.
An addition to McKim Hall was opened. McKim Hall then offered housing for 347 plus classrooms and faculty offices. In 1944, Walker had secured government funds to build the addition. The federal and state government each contributed $147,000 to complete the building. After the new addition opened, Page House and Kelly House were no longer needed as nursing student residences.
Enrollment in the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education was 25 students a year until 1950.
Roy Carpenter Beazley, MA, RN, director of Nursing Education and Department of Nursing Services, 1946-1952
Roy Carpenter Beazley, MA, RN, was appointed director of Nursing Education and Nursing Services, following the resignation of Virginia Walker.
Baccalaureate extension courses in nursing education were offered throughout the state by the Cabaniss Memorial School.
For the first time in the history of UVA Hospital, two Black women who had served as ward maids were promoted to hospital aides.
Four Exchange Visitor Nurses at UVA Hospital featured in the Draw Sheet, February 28, 1964.
U.S. Congress established the Exchange Visitor Program. This program promised internationally educated nurses an American cultural immersion through a two-year educational experience at U.S. hospitals, including UVA Hospital. The meaning of education, however, varied across hospitals and exchange nurses served as a cheap labor source. By the late 1960s, the majority of exchange nurses hailed from Asia, notably the Philippines.
Students and pediatric patients, 1949
The hospital’s nursing school was fully accredited as a diploma school by the National League for Nursing Education and rated in the top 25% of the nation’s diploma schools.
The School of Nursing stopped using Glinn House as a nursing student residence.
The UVA Board of Visitors sanctioned the establishment of the BSN program. In cooperation with Mary Washington College, a pre-nursing curriculum began. The School of Medicine supervised the BSN program. The diploma program remained within the hospital. Degree students attended Mary Washington College and other colleges for two years and then transferred to the University for the nursing education portion of the program.
Mary Washington College students look over the uniform they will wear as members of the school's first BSN class, c. 1950
The first class of students were admitted to the BSN program. Three different nursing programs (BSN, Diploma, and BSNEd) were offered simultaneously at the University from 1950 to 1957. The Diploma program was under the control of the Hospital, the BSN program was under the control of the School of Medicine, and the BSNEd was directed by the School of Education.
1951 graduates.
The school and nursing alumni celebrated the school’s 50th anniversary.
Mary Walker Randolph, MA, RN
Mary Walker Randolph, MA, RN, assumed the leadership of the Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education, following the retirement of Louise Oates.
Burley High School/UVA Hospital Licensed Practical Nursing Program, Class of 1953
Jackson P. Burley School, a Black high school in Charlottesville, established a Licensed Practical Nurses Program in collaboration with the University of Virginia School of Nursing.
During the years of Jim Crow segregation, Black women and men were excluded from UVA School of Nursing. The Burley-UVA LPN training program, however, provided Black women and men with a pathway into nursing. The more than 150 graduates of the LPN program went on to desegregate the UVA hospital and had a major impact on their patients and communities. Despite being graduates of a UVA program, they were denied alumni status. In 2019, the SON held a recognition ceremony attended by these nurses and their families and friends, in which they were acknowledged for their many contributions. They were also given a public apology from the School of Nursing Dean and inducted into the UVA Alumni Association by the UVA president.
Vivian White instructs a 1954 class in McKim Hall auditorium.
The Board of Visitors approved the establishment of a Department of Nursing Education. The three nursing programs (Diploma, BSN, and BSNEd) were placed in the new department under the joint control of the School of Medicine, School of Education, and the UVA Hospital. Roy Beazley, previously responsible for both nursing education and service, became the Director of Nursing Service for the University hospital. Mary Walker Randolph became acting Director of the Department of Nursing Education.
The BSNEd program closed and the RN to BSN program was initiated.
Supreme Court decision, Brown v Board of Education, banned racial segregation in public schools, affirming that separate but equal schools are not, in fact, equal. Virginia is connected because it was one of five legal cases (e.g., Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, Virginia) involved in the decision.
Read: James H. Hershman Jr., UVA and the History of Race: The Era of Massive Resistance
On October 15, 1954, the joint administrative committee of the Department of Nursing met to discuss several policy and administrative issues related to the new department. This included discussion of what policies should be followed concerning Black registered nurses and men nurses who apply to the Department of Nursing. At the meeting, the "Committee unanimously recommended" that the university president's "permission be sought for permitting colored nurses to enroll." Dean Stiles, School of Education, stated that if Black nurses "are enrolled in the Department within the University they may take any class that is required as a prerequisite for the program in which they are registered." John Stacey, Hospital Director, suggested "that male applicants in the basic program be advised to go elsewhere as we have no housing facilities and such schools as the very excellent Mills School have been developed especially for male nurses. Dean Stiles "felt the registered male nurse could enroll here and obtain a satisfactory program."
Evelyn Bacon, MS, RN, acting chair of the Department of Nursing Education, 1954-1956
Evelyn Bacon, MS, RN, was appointed as the acting Director of the Department of Nursing Education, following the departure of Mary Walker Randolph. Bacon was the first married director of the the school.
The last student graduated from the Sadie Heath Cabaniss Memorial School of Nursing Education. The Cabaniss School provided advanced education to almost 200 students. Approximately 85 graduates were awarded bachelor of science in nursing education degrees during its 26 year existence. In addition to on-Grounds courses, from 1946 to 1953 the school also provided baccalaureate courses to over 100 nurses employed in the Richmond and Roanoke areas through the University’s Extension Division.
The School of Nursing approved new regulations regarding marriage and maternity leave.
The ban on student nurses marrying while in school was lifted. Students could now seek permission to marry at the end of 12 months in the school if they had a “B” grade in all their courses and they “demonstrated evidence of being mature."
The School of Nursing adopted a maternity leave policy. It required that the student inform the faculty of her pregnancy as soon as she was “diagnosed as pregnant.” Maternity leave began in the 5th Month of pregnancy and ended 2 months after the birth of the child, unless her physician extended it.
Margaret Tyson, MA, RN, first dean of the School of Nursing, 1956-1961, and 1962-1964.
The School of Nursing's academic budget for 1955-1956 did not include any allocation in the University's budget to operate the BSN program. With President Darden’s permission, members of the nursing faculty including Bacon, Beazley, Margaret Tyson, and Zula Mae Baber, traveled to Richmond to seek support for a special legislative bill to fund the baccalaureate program. The faculty draw upon the state’s nursing organizations to mobilize nurses across Virginia to contact their state legislators to vote for the emergency funding. The faculty were successful in securing state funding for the baccalaureate program.
The Board of Visitors established the School of Nursing as an autonomous and independent school in the University. Margaret Gould Tyson, MA, RN, was appointed acting Dean of the school and Dean in 1958.
University Hospital requested – and the Board of Visitors agreed – that the nursing faculty maintain the diploma program until student enrollment in the baccalaureate program reached sufficient numbers to help staff the hospital.
Faculty members and students at work in McKim Hall library, c. 1958.
Dean Tyson submitted to University President Edward Shannon permission phase out the diploma program. Dr. Thomas Hunter, director of the Medical Center, opposed the plan and secured the support of President Shannon to keep the diploma program open.
The new UVA Hospital, c. 1961
The new 477-bed University hospital opened. Zula Mae Baber, BSNEd, RN was appointed acting Dean of the school for one year, while Tyson took one year's educational leave to complete her doctoral studies at Teachers College, Columbia University.
The U.S. Public Health Service established the Nurse Scientist Graduate Training Program, which provided institutional training grants to universities to support qualified nurses to pursue PhD degrees in the university's biomedical, behavioral, or social science departments.
Dean Margaret Tyson with the other University deans on Founder's Day, 1959.
Margaret Tyson returned from educational leave and re-assumed the Dean position.
The School of Nursing eliminated the policy excluding male students.
In December 1962, the Virginia State Board of Nurse Examiners strongly recommended that the diploma faculty decrease the number of student clinical hours in the program, and that the diploma faculty assume academic control over the students’ clinical assignments. Beazley, as director of the hospital’s nursing services, opposed this as she needed the power to assign students to clinical units and shifts to meet the needs of patients (rather than in terms of the students’ academic needs). When the University failed to comply with the State Board’s recommendation, Tyson believed she had lost effectiveness as dean.
Simkins v. Cone. Supreme Court declined to review lower courts' decision in case brought by African American dentist, George Simkins, against segregated Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina, for refusing to admit one of his patients. The U.S. Court of Appeals sided with Simkins, and the decision ushered in the beginning of the end of racial segregation by hospitals.
Thomas Watters, the first male UVA nursing student, with classmates in 1966.
The school admitted the first male student to the diploma program, Thomas Watters, an ex-Navy Corpsman. He graduated from the program in 1966. Male nursing students were to be housed in the hospital’s Medical Interns Quarters.
U.S. Surgeon General's Consultant Group on Nursing's Report, Toward Quality in Nursing, was released.
President Shannon rejected the nursing faculty’s request to remove the nursing service assignments from the BSN program curriculum. He does so because Dr. Thomas Hunter (director of the Medical Center) and the Medical Affairs Policy Board expressed concerns about the hospital’s inability to provide safe patient care without the BSN students’ services.
U.S. Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits segregation in public accommodations and racial discrimination in employment.
U.S. Congress passed the Nurse Training Act, which allocated a total of $283 million over a five-year period to improve and expand nursing education.
Zula Mae Baber, BSNEd, RN, acting dean of UVA School of Nursing, 1961-1962 and 1964-1966.
Zula Mae Baber again served as acting Dean of the school after Tyson resigns.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ accreditation report strongly recommended the university appoint doctorally prepared educator as the new School of Nursing dean. It also recommended the school establish a self-study committee to evaluate the university’s rationale for continuing the diploma program.
Complaint filed with the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare by the NAACP to investigate civil rights violations and discrimination by the University of Virginia Hospital.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare into law, which established the health insurance program for Americans over 65. This law also included the signing of Medicaid, a health insurance program for low-income persons. Unlike the Hill-Burton Act, the Medicare law mandated desegregation of hospitals and other health care facilities to get public funding. Black-controlled hospitals became peripheral to Black Americans, and they remain so today.
The school’s Self-Study Committee on the Diploma Program recommended closure of the diploma program, which the nursing faculty voted in favor of, recommended the September 1965 class be the last cohort accepted into the diploma program. President Shannon accepted both recommendations in July 1965. The last class of students was admitted into the diploma program.
Mary M. Lohr, EdD, RN, dean 1966-1972, at the 1968 diploma class graduation with Hospital Director John M. Stacey (left) and John Harlan, assistant vice president for allied health affairs (right).
Mary M. Lohr, EdD, RN, appointed dean and named the first Sadie Health Cabiness Professor of Nursing. Under her leadership, many doctorally-prepared nurses were recruited to the faculty.
In May 1967, Dean Lohr circulated to faculty a proposal to establish a Master of Science in Nursing program to develop students' "expertness in one clinical field of nursing," including medical-surgical nursing, pediatric nursing, psychiatric nursing, obstetrical nursing, and public health nursing, and give them the "opportunity to study in the functional areas or teaching nursing or supervision of nursing services." It was "anticipated that one clinical major will be activated each year until the full complement of five majors is offered." This proposal includes handwritten comments from faculty member, Ruth Moran.
This proposal represents some of the early planning that culminated in the launch of the first MSN program launched in 1972, with clinical majors in Pediatrics and Psychiatric/Mental Health Nursing.
Mavis Claytor is the first African American woman admitted to the UVA SON. She graduates from the RN to BSN program in 1970, and obtains her MSN from UVA SON in 1985.
Mavis Claytor was the first Black woman admitted to the SON, enrolling in the RN to BSN program. Although initially assigned a room in McKim Hall, when Claytor arrived to Grounds, the housemother informed her that there was no space available for her. She was denied residence on the basis of her race.
Read: Victoria Tucker, "Race and Place in Virginia: The Case of Nursing," Nursing History Review, 28 (2019): 143-157.
UVA School of Nursing's last diploma graduating class, 1968
The final class of diploma students graduated. The diploma program and diploma nursing affiliation programs were closed. The last senior dance, the Virginia Reel, was held.
Faculty recognized that more space was needed to accommodate any increase in the size of the student body as well as the proposed programs in graduate studies and nursing research, and began planning for a new School of Nursing. Dean Mary Lohr and Dr. Phyllis Veronhick collaborated to develop federal and state grants for the construction of a new nursing education and research building and for the inauguration of faculty research activities.
University provost Frank Hereford invited nursing faculty to consider developing a PhD program.
Phyllis Verhonick, EdD, RN, instructs a nursing student in laboratory research skills.
Roy Beazley retired and is named the SON's first Professor Emeritus.
Kenneth Rinker, MSN, RN, named Director of Nursing Services, became the school’s first male faculty member. Phyllis Verhonick, EdD, RN was appointed the School’s first Director of Nursing Research.
The University received state funds to match a federal construction award, and ground was broken for the new School of Nursing building.
Women were admitted by the College of Arts and Sciences as first-year students. Find out more about the history of women on Grounds at: https://uva.stqry.app/1/tour/9351
In October 191, UVA President, Edgar Shannon, issued a memo in which he emphasized the importance of recruiting to the faculty women and racialized minorities.
The MSN program with clinical majors in Pediatrics and Psychiatric/Mental Health was initiated. Nurse practitioner programs were started and offered as either certificate or degree education in the clinical areas of: Pediatrics, Adult, and Family. The Family and Adult Nurse Practitioner programs were originally administered by the School of Medicine's Department of Medicine.
The new McLeod Hall, 1972
Mary Lohr resigned to become dean at the University of Illinois College of Nursing. Phyllis Verhonick is appointed as acting dean.
The Josephine McLeod Nursing Education Buliding opened for classes in Fall 1972 and was dedicated November 10, 1972.
Total enrollment was 396 undergraduate and graduate students.
Sigma Theta Tau International Beta Kappa Chapter was inaugurated and the chapter inducted 45 members.
Psychiatric-Mental Health master's class, 1970s.
Thirteen graduates of the master's program received the first MSN degrees.
Rose Marie Chioni, PhD, RN, FAAN, served as dean from 1974 to 1988.
Rose Marie Chioni, PhD, FAAN was named Dean.
McKim Hall ceased to serve as a nursing residence, and undergraduate students moved into the Brandon Avenue University residence.
On October 17, 1975, president of the Student Council invited Dean Chioni to attended a Symposium on Minority Affairs. The agenda included remarks by the Student Council President about the administration's responsiveness to student concerns related to minority student affairs, remarks by the Black Student Alliance Chairperson regarding the Black experience at UVA, and presentations by faculty and students of proposals for improving the quality of the Black experience at UVA. Ten days earlier, members of the Minority Affairs Committee had hosted an Open Forum on Minority Affairs to discuss concerns about the recruitment and retention of Black students.
The Nursing Alumni Association established the annual Zula Mae Baber Bice Memorial Lectureship
An Emergency Nurse Practitioner program was started in the spring of 1975. The program, the first in the country in a university school of nursing, and under the direction of Denise Geolot and Dr. Richard Edlich, educated nurses to provide primary and emergency care to patients in emergency facilities.
Medical-Surgical MSN clinical training, 1970s.
The Medical-Surgical clinical track was added to the MSN program.
In 1976, the UVA School of Nursing and the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) School of Nursing received a three-year federal grant from the Division of Nursing, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to operate a Cooperative Masters Program to provide outreach graduate nursing education in Medical-Surgical Nursing to nurses throughout Virginia. While UVA SON provided graduate courses in the southwestern part of the state, centered in Wytheville, MCV SON provided graduate courses in the Tidewater-Norfolk area. The project was originally funded through capitation resources from the MCV SON and the Virginia Department of Community Colleges.
MSN students in a lab class, 1970s.
The Family and Adult Nurse Practitioner programs were administratively moved from the School of Medicine's Department of Medicine to the School of Nursing.
The UVA SON began planning a PhD in Nursing program. Dean Chioni appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on Doctoral Education in Nursing, which held an all-day meeting on January 11, 1978 to discuss the need for and feasibility of establishing a PhD in Nursing and to consider potential content and curriculum for a PhD program. The ad hoc committee met regularly through 1978 and 1979 and submitted a proposal to the Virginia State Council of Higher Education in April 1980 to initiate a PhD in Nursing program in Fall 1982.
Staff member, Becky Bowers, serves as a mock patient for nursing students c. 1978
The Community Health clinical track was added to the MSN program.
Amy Easter was the first undergraduate nursing student assigned a room on the Lawn.
In March 1981, Dean Chioni completed a study of the factors affecting the employment of the graduates of the UVA SON in the context of growing concerns about a national nursing shortage. She shared the results of the study with President Frank Hereford and other UVA leaders. Among the study's findings were that 83% of graduates were working as nurses, with the majority working as staff nurses at the bedside.
In 1981, the School of Nursing's Ad Hoc Advisory Committee for Affirmative Action tasked a consultant, Cecilia Dawkins, PhD, RN, assistant professor from the University of Illinois Chicago College of Nursing, with evaluating the SON's resources, efforts, and progress made in recruiting minoritized faculty. Dawkins submits her report in April 1981.
Proposal for PhD in Nursing Program submitted to the Virginia State Council of Higher Education in April 1980.
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The PhD in Nursing program opened under the auspices of the Graduate School of Arts and Science. Three students enrolled in the first class.
The four nurse practitioner certificate programs closed, and the family practitioner program became a post-master’s option.
UVA issued its 1984 annual report and assessment of the university's activities and efforts to increase the recruitment and retention of Black students and faculty. In addition to providing an overview of Black student and faculty recruitment and retention at the university, it also included reports from each school within the university, including the School of Nursing. During the 1983-1984 academic, there were 16 Black students in the BSN program, the Master's program enrolled three new Black students, whose progress through the program was reported as "excellent," and had received applicants from three Black students for fall 1984. On the faculty side, the SON struggled to recruit Black faculty. At the time, the SON had one Black faculty member.
The first nursing doctoral graduate, Sara Knight (right), who graduated in 1985, with Dean Chioni (left).
The first doctoral student, Sara Knight, earned her PhD.
Publication of Report of the Task Force of Afro-American Affairs, which was established by University president Robert O'Neil to investigate the state of race relations on UVA Grounds. The report examined the past, present, and future of race relations at UVA. It found that while some progress had been made in terms of race relations, the "self-transformation of the University of Virginia into a genuinely integrated institution equally receptive to people of all races is far from complete.
Read: Claudrena N. Harold, "No Ordinary Sacrifice: The Struggle for Racial Justice at the University of Virginia in the Post-Civil Rights Era," in Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity (University of Virginia Press, 2018).
On June 1, 1988, Dean Chioni was appointed by the Virginia General Assembly to serve as a member of the Joint Subcommittee to Study the Supply and Demand for Nurses in the Commonwealth. The subcommittee was established following the adoption of House Joint Resolution No. 165 by the 1988 Session of the General Assembly. Throughout the two-year study, the subcommittee was charged with the responsibility of determining the existence, origins, and effects of a perceived critical nursing shortage. The subcommittee issued its final report in 1990.
Undergraduate students practice clinical skills on a mannequin, 1980s
The Second Degree to MSN program started. The RN to BSN program was revised to become a RN to MSN program. First-year undergraduate students were admitted into the School of Nursing.
The Center for Nursing Research was established to assist faculty and graduate students in writing and compiling grant proposals with oversight provided by Dr. Judy Ozbolt, associate dean of research.
As an outgrowth of a relationship established in the 1950s with Clinch Valley College of the University of Virginia, the College made a formal request to Dean Lancaster for assistance creating a Clinch Valley undergraduate nursing program. For the next two years, Dean Lancaster and Dr. Betty Johnson provided curriculum consultation and faculty support to develop the program.
Jeanette Lancaster, PhD, RN, FAAN, served as dean from 1989 to 2008
Cynthia Faye Raines, PhD, RN became acting Dean, after Rose Marie Chioni stepped down from the role in 1988.
In August, Jeanette Lancaster, PhD, RN, FAAN, Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing, began her tenure as Dean.
The Center on Aging and Health became the first research center to open in the school.
Pavilion II became the School of Nursing dean’s residence.
The School of Nursing Advisory Board was established to support and promote the Dean’s educational, research and service objectives.
The UVA School of Nursing established a nursing clinic at Crescent Hall to provide health services to the elderly and disabled residents of the public housing complex. The Crescent Halls Nursing Clinic provided health assessment, health teaching, management of health problems, individualized counseling and education, case management and referral services.
Barbara Brodie, PhD, RN, FAAN and Arlene Keeling, PhD, RN, directed the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry, 1990s.
The Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry opened, directed by Dr. Barbara Brodie and co-directed by doctoral students, Arlene Keeling and Sylvia Rinker.
The Southeastern Rural Mental Health Research Center, directed by Dr. Jeanne Fox, opened, with funding from the National Institute of Mental Health. It represented a joint effort between UVA SON and rural Virginia mental health and medical clinics to improve the health care of impoverished minoritized patients, the elderly, mentally ill, and women and children.
As the School of Nursing began to outgrow its physical space, Dean Jeanette Lancaster made the first request for monetary support from the University for an addition to McLeod Hall.
The school and alumni association initiated a major fund-raising campaign. For the first time, significant private resources were sought for student scholarships, faculty research, teaching initiatives, and school projects.
Building upon the early success of the Crescent Halls Nursing Clinic, the UVA School of Nursing was awarded a five-year $1.3M federal grant from the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration to establish additional primary care nursing clinics for residents of the Westhaven public housing complex, as well as a school-based community clinic in rural Greene County. The three clinics (at Crescent Halls, Westhaven, and Greene County) were organized under the auspices of the Primary Care Nursing Center, which was directed by faculty member, Dr. Doris Glick. The clinics were led by nurse practitioners and provided clinical education to UVA nursing students as well as opportunities for clinical research projects.
From 1993 until 2000, the Westhaven Nursing Clinic provided cost-effective primary nursing care services to the low-income residents of Westhaven, including health assessment, health teaching, management of health problems, case management and referral services, and community outreach, and the Greene County School Health Cottage provided comprehensive preventative and primary health care for the 2500 school children in Greene County schools, including health screening and assessment, monitoring of immunizations, early identification and treatment of common health problems, management of chronic conditions, case management, health education and promotion, and referral services.
Student nurse washing a patient's feet.
The Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program opened under the leadership of Dr. Ann Gill Taylor.
Dean Lancaster revitalized the Center for Nursing Research to help support the research productivity of the centers and that of individual faculty members. The center had briefly been disbanded and replaced by the Office of Grants Administration from July 1, 1992 until fall 1994, when Dean Lancaster reestablished the Center for Nursing Research and appointed Dr. Barbara Parker as the director of the center.
Undergraduate students practice clinical skills in the Laboratory for Clinical Learning.
The Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies (CSCAT), opened under the leadership of Dr. Ann Gill Taylor as one of the original NIH-funded centers to stimulate research in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
The UVA Office of Equal Opportunity Programs published its report, "An Examination of the University's Minority Classified Staff (The Muddy Floor Report)." The report highlighted "glaring disparities" in employment opportunities, performance evaluations, and disciplinary sanctions between white and Black employees. It found that African Americans were overrepresented in unskilled positions in the University, and virtually nonexistent in high-salaried, managerial positions.
Read: Claudrena N. Harold, "No Ordinary Sacrifice: The Struggle for Racial Justice at the University of Virginia in the Post-Civil Rights Era," in Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity (University of Virginia Press, 2018).
Technology makes nurse practitioner distance learning possible, 1997.
Two innovative distance learning telecommunication projects, developed by Dr. Julie Novak and funded by the Virginia Health Foundation in 1996 and the Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration in 1997, brought nurse practitioner graduate education to the southwest and northeast areas of Virginia
A group of UVA students traveled to San Sebastián, El Salvador, as members of Nursing Students Without Borders.
Nursing Students Without Borders (NSWB) was founded by UVA nursing undergraduates.
The School of Nursing launched its own distinctive website.
The nursing clinics at Crescent Halls and Westhaven close. Following completion of the federal grant, the School of Nursing was unable to secure sufficient new funding to maintain the clinics.
In May 2000, after the closure of the Westhaven Nursing Clinic, a group of concerned citizens, public agencies, organizations, and churches established the Westhaven Clinic Coalition. The Westhaven Clinic reopened in August 2000, with the Virginia Organizing Project serving as funding conduit and financial manager of the clinic and with substantial assistance provided by the Public Housing Association of Residents, the UVA Women's Place, the Sexual Assault Research Agency, Martha Jefferson Hospital, Westminster Presbyterian Church, Trinity Episcopal Church, and the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority. The Westhaven Clinic operated under the faith-based parish nursing model, led by Holly Edwards.
The Pulse, an online student newsletter, was initiated.
The School of Nursing and the Nursing Alumni Association celebrated the school’s Centennial with many activities designed to bring alumni back to the University for both educational purposes and social events.
A new research program, The Virginia Nursing Research Enhancement Initiative, started in fall of 2001. This program provided for a monthly visit by two senior researchers who work intensively with faculty on research grants and programs.
Web-based teaching began in the School of Nursing. The online post-master's geriatric nurse practitioner program was launched.
Fundraising efforts to build an addition to McLeod Hall started.
The School of Nursing’s bylaws were modified to make the Diversity Task Force a standing committee.
HRSA funding was provided for 3 years to launch Leadership in Community, Public Health, & Health Systems, an on-line teaching program to increase graduate education across the Commonwealth.
The Rural Health Care Research Center, directed by Dr. Elizabeth Merwin, opened. The Rural Health Care Research Center was created to develop infrastructure to conduct and disseminate nursing research responsive to clinical needs of rural populations.
The School was notified that the General Assembly had appropriated $6 million toward the McLeod Hall Addition.
The Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education on April 21, 2004 granted accreditation of the baccalaureate and master’s degree programs in nursing for a term of 10 years, extending to June 30, 2014 (following the on-site visit at the SON October 1-3, 2003). The Virginia Board of Nursing granted full approval of the Nursing Program for a term of 8 years (following the on-site visit at the SON October 1-3, 2003).
The Faculty Organization approved the concept of creating a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree and appointed an Implementation Task Force to develop curriculum.
The Clinical Nurse Leader Program, designed to prepare nursing generalists at the master’s level with baccalaureate preparation in another field as an admission requirement, was launched in the fall of 2005.
The Virginia Tobacco Commission awarded a grant to fund a new nursing career ladder in Southside and Southwest Virginia. The resulting program, a partnership between the School and VCU, began in the fall of 2005.
To acknowledge the contribution made by advance practice nurses to the School’s educational programs and to ensure greater continuity of clinician staffing in the educational programs, a Clinician Educator position was established. Seven Medical Center/Health System Foundation nurses were recruited.
The SON faculty designed a new Doctor of Nursing Practice program, which was approved by the UVA Board of Visitors on June 9, 2006, and the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in January 2007.
Faculty member Courtney Lyder was appointed to the new position of Director of Diversity Initiatives for the Medical Center and School of Nursing.
The Helene Fuld Health Trust awarded slightly more than $1.1 million to fund tuition support, a leadership forum, and other support for students, faculty, and preceptors in the Clinical Nurse Leader program. The Claude Moore Foundation donated $5 million, over five years. In honor of this contribution, the new SON building was named the Claude Moore Nursing Education Building. The SON received a $1 million from the Theresa A. Thomas Foundation, a pledge of $1 million from the Goodwins, and a matching grant of $1 million from the Mary Morton Parsons Foundation to expand and renovate the Clinical Simulation Learning Center.
The DNP program welcomed its first 28 students.
65 faculty and staff members moved into the new Claude Moore Nursing Education Building (CMNEB). The building opened for classes in fall and was dedicated on Sept. 5. Other moves included the relocation of the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry to the first floor of McLeod Hall and the return to McLeod Hall of the Center for the Study of Complementary and Alternative Therapies.
Dorrie Fontaine, PhD, RN, FAAN, served as dean of UVA School of Nursing from 2008-2019
In August, Dean Dorrie Fontaine assumed leadership of the School of Nursing, following Jeanette Lancaster's decision to step down after serving 19 years as Dean.
The Lancaster Fund for Excellence was endowed to support innovation in education and research.
After a successful February site visit, the DNP program received accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) until December 31, 2014.
The UVA Interprofessional Education Initiative began its work with the aid of a nationally-recognized consultant and the support of School of Medicine Dean Steven DeKosky.
The Compassionate Care Initiative was established.
The School of Nursing received $2 million from Tussi and John Kluge to fund the Tussi and John Kluge Professorship in Contemplative End-of-Life Care.
Renovations to McLeod Hall began.
Renovations to the first floor of McLeod Hall were completed. The Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry celebrated its reopening in its first-floor home.
The Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry was renamed the Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry thanks to the generosity of long-time supporter Eleanor Crowder Bjoring.
Men Advancing Nursing (MAN) Club, a student affinity group for people of all genders and backgrounds to promote nursing as a profession as well as providing community outreach, was established. In 2024, the MAN Club was renamed a chapter of the American Association for Men in Nursing.
UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center was founded to explore contemplative practices, values, ideas and institutions historically and in contemporary times to understand them better and apply related principles in modern contexts
Renovation of the McLeod Hall 3rd floor was completed, and the reimagined 9,200 square-foot Mary Morton Parsons Clinical Simulation Learning Center was dedicated.
The UVA Center for Academic Strategic Partnerships for Interprofessional Research and Education (Center for ASPIRE), directed by Valentina Brashers, was established, formalizing the existing partnerships among the Schools of Nursing and Medicine and the Health Sciences Library to practice and promote collaboration among health care providers.
The School received a $5 million gift for the CNL program from Bill and Joanne Conway to double the size of the CNL program over five years, augment its faculty base and establish the Conway Scholars program.
The UVA SON guaranteed admission to the RN to BSN program to qualified RNs who graduate from the Virginia Community College System.
The traditional BSN program piloted the STAR program, involving all 87 third-year students in nursing research.
The Compassionate Care Initiative organized its first resiliency retreat for 4th year SON students at UVA’s Morven Farms in November.
Second-year students celebrated the School’s first White Coat Ceremony, one of 100 nursing schools across the US that celebrated the ritual.
The Center for ASPIRE received a $1.08 million grant for a three year program to integrate enhanced teamwork and Patient Safety and Quality Improvement training into the BSN-DNP curriculum and educate acute care advanced practice registered students in interprofessional teams with medical residents to deliver safe, high quality team-based patient and population-centered care for individuals with multiple chronic conditions.
School classrooms and conference rooms were upgraded to allow for video teleconferencing and distance learning, either synchronous or asynchronous.
UVA Nursing established its first Parents’ Council, an advisory group made up of the family members of undergraduate nursing students.
Pamela Cipriano, associate research professor, was elected president of the American Nurses Association.
The School of Nursing’s continuing education programs received accreditation from the American Nurses Credentialing Center.
Renovations to McLeod Hall were completed and included several high-tech classrooms and two resilience rooms for group and individual practice.
The Dean’s Initiative on Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence Achievement was launched in the fall semester with the overarching goal of improving respect, inclusion, and engagement in the SON's community of students, staff, and faculty, it also established holistic admissions.
Kenny with BSN students Cindy Tran and Mia Kim
Darden Executive Education and the School of Nursing partnered to establish a new six-month Leadership Partners in Healthcare Management program for physician-nurse pairs to hone their interprofessional teamwork and leadership skills.
The Nursing Alumni Association celebrated its centennial.
Two new graduate tracks were approved to open enrollment for fall, 2017 by the School’s Faculty Organization, the University’s Academic Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate, and the provost: a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner program and a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner-Acute Care program.
Kenny, an Australian Mini Labradoodle, became the SON’s official therapy dog, trained by nursing professor Edie Barbaro
In January, Washington, D.C. philanthropists Joanne and Bill Conway gave $5 million to the School’s Clinical Nurse Leader program to fund nursing scholarships and administrative support for the signature program. The gift mirrored a 2013 gift of the same amount that supported the CNL program’s expansion.
Mavis Claytor, the first African American student to enter – and graduate from – UVA’s School of Nursing (Photo by Dan Addison, University Communications)
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In the spring, alumna Mavis Ford Claytor (BSN `70, MSN `85) – UVA Nursing’s first African-American graduate – was the 2017 McGehee Lecturer, and was feted for her trailblazing career as a nurse manager and innovator. In response to Dean Dorrie Fontaine’s apology for the discrimination she received during her time at UVA – issued before hundreds in McLeod Auditorium – Ms. Claytor stated, “All is forgiven.” In November, 2017, Claytor’s official portrait – which hangs in Claude Moore Nursing Education building on the 2nd floor landing – was unveiled before dozens of students, administrators, faculty, family and friends.
In July, 2017, the School earned a $2.3 million Strategic Investment Fund grant to fund the formation of student-faculty research teams, offer student scholarship opportunities, update the School’s high-tech infrastructure, and support faculty professional development and training.
School of Nursing banner adorned the exterior of McLeod Hall since 2016
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After the University of Virginia and Charlottesville were rocked by violent protests on August 11 & 12, which claimed the life of a counterprotester and two state police officers. The School of Nursing convened a series of town hall meetings and ongoing forums with students, faculty, and staff. A banner – put up in late 2016 on the exterior of McLeod Hall – continued its timely proclamation: We are a community of compassion and respect.
The first cohort of 15 Neonatal Nurse Practitioner and Pediatric Nurse Practitioner-Acute Care students began coursework in the new NNP and PNP-AC graduate tracks.
UVA School of Nursing held its first LGBTQ+ Health Care Summit, organized by Continuing Nursing Education. The summit included safe space training and guidance for clinicians to better care for/connect with LGTBQ patients.
UVA School of Nursing re-established the Westhaven Nursing Clinic through the collaborative efforts of a coalition of residents, area clinicians, SON faculty, and with philanthropic funding from Patricia and Keith Woodard. Sharon Veith was appointed as the clinic's community health nurse, serving in that role until her retirement in 2023. In January 2023, Christina Feggan-Langston began serving as the Westhaven Nursing Clinic's community health nurse. The clinic offers to residents of Westhaven and Crescent Halls health screenings, monitoring and support for chronic health conditions, and guidance and referrals for food, housing, mental health, and other resources. UVA nursing students complete community health clinical rotations at the Westhaven Nursing Clinic.
Some 25 UVA LPN graduates of the Burley High School and UVA Hospital program that ran from the 1950s through at least 1980 were honored before hundreds at an April 6 "Hidden Nurses" ceremony (Photo by Christine Kueter).
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In 2019, the School of Nursing held a recognition ceremony to honor the graduates of the Burley High School/UVA LPN Training Program and officially recognize them as alumni of the University of Virginia. The ceremony was attended by twenty-five of these nurses and their families and friends, in which they were acknowledged for their many contributions. They were also given a public apology from the School of Nursing Dean and inducted into the UVA Alumni Association by the UVA president.
Pam Cipriano, PhD, RN, NEA-BC, FAAN, served as interim dean of the UVA School of Nursing from 2019 to 2022
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Pam Cipriano appointed Interim Dean of UVA School of Nursing, after Dorrie Fontaine steps down.
UVA School of Nursing joined UVA Health, becoming one of its seven entities within UVA Health that also includes the UVA Health University Medical Center, UVA School of Medicine, UVA Community Health, UVA Community Health Medical Group, UVA Physicians Group, and Claude Moore Health Sciences Library.
The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
UVA halted in-person classes in March. That spring, 94 School of Nursing courses moved online during the COVID pandemic. The class of 2020 graduated early and their Virginia state licensing exams (NCLEX) were also fast-tracked.
The murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020, prompted a reckoning at the UVA School of Nursing, making clear that the School of Nursing was not making the deep substantive changes necessary to truly become an antiracist school. During summer 2020, an Antiracism Working Group comprised of students, faculty and staff in the School of Nursing mobilized and met weekly throughout the summer and into the fall to develop further concrete actions to address racism and other bias in the hospital. The goal of this student-led group aimed to prepare students and faculty to address racism and other forms of bias, as a target of, witness to, or perpetrator of this behavior in clinical settings. The group felt it to be essential for nursing students and other stakeholders to have a background understanding of the history of race and racism in our local context before engaging in clinical practice.
Milania Harris and Zahra Alisa, 3rd year BSN students, established new student group – Advocates for Medical Equality. During fall and winter, members of Advocates for Medical Equality developed educational materials that were distributed to nursing students, faculty and staff through weekly “anti-bigotry infographics.”
The Clinical Simulation Learning Center nearly doubled in size as part of a $20 million grant to the School of Nursing from Joanne and Bill Conway. The expansion allowed the simulation lab to train 3 times as many students as before.
UVA Health became the sole owner of UVA Community Health, establishing UVA Community Health as one of the seven entities supporting the multiple missions of UVA Health. Prior to this, UVA Community Health had been a joint venture entity, with the majority of ownership and management decision-making controlled by Novant Health.
Undergraduate nursing students establish the Black Student Nurses Alliance. The goal of the BSNA is to support and create community among Black students at the School of Nursing.
Marianne Baernholdt, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, Dean, UVA School of Nursing
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Marianne Baernholdt appointed Dean of the School of Nursing.
UVA students, from left, Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D'Sean Perry (right)
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Three UVA students - Devin Chandler, Lavel Davis Jr., and D'Sean Perry - were killed as they returned from a bus trip to Washington, D.C., and two other students are injured in the shooting, Michael Hollins and Marlee Morgan. The shooter was a fellow UVA student, Christopher Darnell Jones Jr.
Undergraduate nursing students, Ana Aguirre and Annalisa Cintron, cofounded the Latinx Nursing Student Union. As described by Cintron, the LNSU's goal is to "create forums to come together, celebrate Latinx voices, and build communities where especially undergraduate and graduate Latinx students can mingle."
Class of 2022 reading the UVA School of Nursing Student Pledge
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Milania Harris and Zahra Alisa (BSN, Class of 2022), revised the UVA School of Nursing Student Pledge to reflect the inclusive values of the school and its graduating students, updating the original version written by the classes of 2013 and 2014.
qRN, a student affinity group for LQBTQ+, questioning, and allied nursing students and faculty, was established.
The UVA School of Nursing began a partnership with the Starr Hill Pathways Program, a program that provides middle school students from Charlottesville and Albemarle County with the opportunity to explore different career pathways. In March 2023, about 40 local middle school students spent a day with undergraduate nursing students and faculty members learning about the School of Nursing.
UVA School of Nursing began offering guaranteed admission to its alumni who are interested in attending a graduate program to earn an MSN, post-professional specialty certificate or DNP degree.
UVA School of Nursing launched its new 10-year strategic plan: Our Extraordinary Future: Inspiring Excellence, Advancing Health.
The Asian American Pacific Islander Nursing Student Association was established in 2024 to provide space for the community of AAPI nursing students at the UVA School of Nursing and to bring members of the community together to foster a sense of belonging and connect through similar identities, backgrounds, and experiences.
The UVA Northern Virginia campus in Fairfax opened. UVA’s first satellite campus offers the SON’s RN to BSN program in addition to other programs.
The UVA School of Nursing collaborated with UVA Health to launch a new UVA Health Mobile Care Unit was launched, staffed by SON and UVA Health clinicians and nursing students.
UVA Health and UVA School of Nursing established the Synergy Center, a collaboration hub for nurses and nurses-to-be during four key moments in their education and career: transition to practice, professional growth, career transitions, and legacy. The goal of the Synergy Center is to address nursing workforce recruitment and retention issues by creating synergy between an individual's goals the organizational needs through purposeful interaction between the School of Nursing and the University Medical Center. The Synergy Center is co-directed by Mary Coffey and Shelly Smith.
