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Nursing school turns 100, celebrates with yearlong event

Sept. 2, 2009

A 1958 photo shows Baylor nursing students practicing their trade in a lab.

Adeola Aro

Staff Writer

One hundred years have passed since the nursing school first opened its doors, and to celebrate this, Baylor plans on hosting a yearlong celebration to commemorate its rich history and commitment to service.

"We want to honor and celebrate the alumni of the first 100 years, but we also want people to get excited about what the school will be doing for the next 100 years," said Dr. Judy Wright Lott, the nursing school's dean, in a press release.

The first event was a ribbon- cutting ceremony, Aug. 17 at the Mayborn Museum Complex.

The 100-year exhibit features special artifacts from wool nursing capes and apothecary bottles to modern scrubs and photographs that present the history in an easily understood format.

Parker junior Saayeh Farzaneh enjoyed the exhibit's tribute to the profession of nursing.

"People commonly assume that a nurse's job has small parameters," Farzaneh said."It is interesting to see the stories of the nurses in this exhibit, and it's like a profession of the world and lends itself to different avenues."

The school's contributions to the military are also highlighted in the exhibit.

During World War II, two Baylor graduates were held as prisoners of war for three years after Corregidor, an island in the Philippines, surrendered to the Japanese.

Newspaper articles and mannequins dressed in actual uniforms are used to honor the two prisoners of war.

A mock stimulation lab is also featured in the museum.

In 2008, the school opened the Dan A. and Ruth Buchholz Stimulation lab, an interactive classroom that simulates dummies who display actual symptoms, and with software instructors can control realistic functions such as pulse and breathing.

The dumies can even verbally communicate with the students.

Willis Point Senior Haley Guthrie said instructors speak into a microphone from another room and students can hear their voices in the dummies.

"This helps us because it's more life-like than a plain dummy. It better prepares us for the real world," Guthrie said.

The museum will run the exhibit through May 2010. In addition, the school will hold various events throughout the school year, including an alumni reunion in early October.

The school, which began as a nurse's training school for the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium, opened in 1909. The school was renamed the Baylor Hospital School of Nursing in 1921 and became the Baylor University School of Nursing in 1936. Shifting in 1950 from hospital-based training to a university-based instruction, the transition made it one of the oldest baccalaureate nursing programs in the United States.

In 2000, the school's name changed to the Louise Herrington School of Nursing after Louise Herrington Ornelas, co-founder of the TCA Cable Inc. of Tyler and a 1992 Baylor University Alumna Honoris Causa, who made a significant gift to endow the university.

All faculty members are registered nurses.

The Louise Herrington School of Nursing is located in Dallas, Texas, on the campus of Baylor Medical Center. Students need 131 credits to obtain a degree and must earn 66 hours from the Waco campus or another institution before completing their final two years at the Dallas campus. More than 4,000 students have graduated, and currently there are over 300 students enrolled in the program.

For more information about the Louise Herrington School of Nursing, contact Stephanie_Willey@Baylor.edu

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