UVA School of Nursing Receives $100,000 Gift to Nursing History Center


Date released: 23 Feb 2009

UVA School of Nursing Receives $100,000 Gift to History Center

Bjoring Dedication 067

The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Conference Room was officially dedicated at a celebration in the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry at the University of Virginia School of Nursing.  Dr. Bjoring was present to greet faculty, staff, students and friends who applauded her gift of $100,000. 

According to Arlene Keeling, PhD, RN, Centennial Distinguished Professor of Nursing and the Center’s Director, the generous gift to the nursing history center resulted from a relationship that began when she first met Dr. Bjoring at a conference of the American Association for the History of Nursing (AAHN) in 1989.  In the intervening years, the retired professor and nursing historian has received the Center’s newsletter and made periodic donations. Recently, “Memo,” as she is known to friends, contacted Dr. Keeling shortly after receiving a newsletter.  According to a smiling Dr. Keeling, “she announced that she liked what we were doing up here in Virginia , and wanted to make a donation of $100,000 – and would I be interested.’”   

Although Dr. Bjoring retired as a nursing professor, she never lost her passion for nursing history.   Indeed, she lived some interesting nursing history herself.  She served as a U.S. Air Force flight nurse both in the U.S. and Korea, was a disaster relief polio nurse during the 1952 polio epidemic, and served as a nursing instructor in India , among other professional assignments prior to her teaching career.   She has published extensively on nursing history, including her most recent book published ten years after her 1996 retirement: Passing the Legacy: A History of the Last Fifty Years of the School of Nursing of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.  She has long been a leader in the nursing history field, serving in numerous positions with the AAHN. 

Founded in 1992, the UVA nursing center is one of only two dedicated nursing history centers in the United States .  When the School’s new Claude Moore Nursing Education Building opened recently, the history center was able to move into larger first floor space in McLeod Hall.  The importance of nursing history, according to Arlene Keeling, is not just as an exploration of quaint ways nurses used to do things, but as a repository of information that can guide present and future nursing practice.  A good example of that is her recent presentation, When the City is a Great Field Hospital: Lillian Wald and the Influenza Epidemic in New York City , 1918, that holds valuable lessons for modern nursing preparations for addressing a worldwide flu pandemic. 

The University of Virginia School of Nursing stands among the top 5% in the nation, ranked 19th by US News & World Report; two of its graduate programs are currently listed in the U.S. News Top Ten.  With a vigorous research program that includes studies in rural health care and disparities, oncology, gerontology, complementary therapies and nursing history, the School has implemented new programs and strategies to address the national nursing shortage and the concurrent need for more highly educated nurses to deliver increasingly complex health care. The newly opened Claude Moore Nursing Education Building and upcoming renovation of McLeod Hall allow for an enrollment increase and expansion of the Clinical Simulation Learning Center and the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry.  Dean and Sadie Heath Cabaniss Professor of Nursing Dorrie Fontaine, RN, PhD, FAAN, is the former associate dean for academic programs at the University of California San Francisco and a past president of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses, the largest specialty nursing organization in the world.  For more information about the UVA School of Nursing and its programs, visit www.nursing.virginia.edu.