Nursing as a Profession

Nursing Integrated into the University

Richard Olding Beard's monumental thinking changed the concept of the nursing occupation from the pupil nurse to the professional nurse¹. The hospital training program has now been modernized into a college within a university. 

However, the School of Nursing was still nestled under the School of Medicine as of the early 1930s. There was a lack of separate faculty, a separate dean, and separate funding². This usually meant that the School of Medicine's needs were met first. 

Although nursing was now integrated into the university system, the school still had a long way to go to fulfill Beard's full vision. 

Dedication of Nurses' Hall

Twenty-one years after the founding of the School of Nursing, Beard spoke as to why nurses should have their own place to live together². As of this point, nursing students lived among medical students and didn't have a place to call their own. 

Beard's efforts paid off in October of 1933 when the new Nurses' Hall was dedicated as a place for students and teachers in the school of nursing can enjoy studying, recreation, exercise, and making friends. As a milestone in the School of Nursing's history, it can be said that "the history of this school of nursing is no common one³."

Changing Society's View of Nursing

Now that the School of Nursing was granted autonomy as its own program within the university, its administration had to change nursing's image in the eyes of the public. Up to this point, nursing was seen as a necessary, but inferior and meager, occupation. Women went into this field because there was nothing else available to them. 

However, advertising of university nursing programs began to change this image. "As a nurse...you work constantly with people in all walks of life. As a nurse...you help others solve their problems. As a nurse...you are a source of strength and understanding to persons who need and depend on you ⁴."

Pamphlets such as this told society that nursing is, in fact, a respectable profession. Nurses are more personable than doctors and will work through issues while taking the patient's needs into account. Advertising efforts brought new nursing students into the university while also changing nursing from a service to a profession.