Vanderbilt University School of Nursing (VUSN) recognized graduating Master of Science in Nursing and Doctor of Nursing Practice students during a traditional Pinning ceremony on Thursday, May 10, at Nashville’s Scarritt Bennett Center.
Dean Linda D. Norman, DSN, FAAN, the Valere Potter Menefee Professor of Nursing, greeted the approximately 250 students and guests and gave an overview of nursing’s pinning tradition.
Nursing pins can be traced back to the Crusades, Norman said. They were adopted as the symbol of completion of a nursing program of study after Florence Nightingale presented them to her nursing graduates in the 1860s. Every nursing school awards a custom pin to its new graduates.
VUSN’s pin portrays the university’s founder, Cornelius Vanderbilt. New MSN graduates receive the pin and new DNP graduates receive a lavaliere to wear with their previously awarded pins.
Students in the Adult-Gerontology Primary Care, Family/Adult Gerontology Acute Care (Emergency Focus), Health Care Leadership, Nurse-Midwifery/Family, and Women’s Health/Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner specialties received pins from their specialty directors.
DNP students were pinned by the program’s Academic Director Terri Allison, DNP, FAANP.
Leanne Boehm, PhD’16, MSN’09, president of the Iota chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing, announced the winners of the annual Iota and VUSN-sponsored DNP Scholarly Project and Poster Presentation. Beth McCraw, DNP’17, received the Outstanding Podium Presentation award and Taylor DeBoer, DNP’17, MSN’15, was awarded Outstanding Poster Presentation.
Photos by Susan Urmy/Vanderbilt University