While walking to class Wednesday afternoon, you may have noticed a large white tent blocking your path from Rand to Stevenson, swarming with people and emitting a boom of music and speeches.
You stumbled upon the Kickoff Picnic, an event marking the start of the Vanderbilt School of Nursing Centennial Celebration. The event, lasting from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Aug. 27, included free food, live music and prize drawings, and was hosted by Chancellor Nick Zeppos, Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs Harry Jacobson and Dean Colleen Conway-Welch.
Betsey Usher, centennial coordinator, said she expected the event to attract roughly 3,000 visitors.
“I think a lot of people don’t value what nurses do … it is our year to make a big deal. The point of the celebration is to raise awareness that we exist and are a great school,” said Usher.
Susan Shipley, alumni director at the School of Nursing, who ran the “Thank a Nurse Station” where visitors could express their thanks to nurses on a large canvas that will later be hung in the school, said the point of the celebration is to raise awareness and to say, “Hey, Vandy, we have a centennial this year!”
The yearlong Centennial Celebration will include a lecture series beginning on Sept. 18 with Lt. General Russel Honore. The school will also hold a gala on Oct. 23 where it will honor the school’s top 100 leaders chosen from the school’s 7,181 graduates.
The Vanderbilt School of Nursing was established in 1908 and served as a training ground for people interested in working as nurses at the hospital. The school used to be located on 5th Avenue and Elm Street, before it moved in 1925 to its current location on Vanderbilt’s campus.
Over the past 100 years, more has changed at the nursing school than just the location. When classes first started in 1908, only a handful of students attended classes. Now, more than 700 students are currently enrolled and the school now offers 18 different masters specialty programs, a PhD program and its newest degree, a doctor of nursing practice.
