We are excited to announce that the College of Nursing Collection, 1948-2014, is now available! The College of Nursing Collection finding aid can be viewed on Archon, our Finding Aid Database, and selections from the collection have been digitized and are available on DigiNole.
The College of Nursing Collection consists of papers, ephemera, and photographs that document the history and activities of Florida State University’s College of Nursing from its development in 1948 through 2014. The collection includes records from the deans, the graduate nursing program, various faculty committees, student organizations (Student Nurses Association and Sigma Theta Tau), and the Legacy Project, as well as materials created for special events such as pinning and graduation ceremonies, homecoming events, conferences, and presentations.
In early 1950, Florida’s Board of Control (the predecessor of the Board of Regents) approved the establishment of a School of Nursing at Florida State University and appointed Vivian M Duxbury as the first Dean of the School. By September, the School of Nursing admitted its first students: a group of twenty-five young women. FSU’s SON was only the second collegiate school of nursing to be set up in Florida, with the first at FAMU.
In 1952, the School of Nursing awarded its first degrees to three women students. In the fall, faculty members Agnes Salisbury and Karleen Gillies began teaching the first extension courses in Jacksonville and Miami, respectively. In 1958, the SON became the only nursing school in Florida accredited by the National League for Nursing and was one of less than 100 in the nation.
At first, there was no particular building reserved for the nursing program; offices and classes were held in various buildings around campus. The School of Nursing moved into its new building, Vivian M Duxbury Hall, in the fall of 1975. The most recent milestone in the nursing program’s history is the change of its name from “School” to “College” in the summer of 2006.
To see more photographs, ephemera, and artifacts related to the history of Florida State, check out the FSU Heritage Protocol Digital Collections or like the Heritage Protocol Facebook page.
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