Challenge and Change : A History of the Dalhousie School of Nursing, 1949-1989

In response to this pressure, in 1993 a History Committee was formed whose mandate was to facilitate the writing of the School’s history in advance of and in preparation for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary. [...] The committee was to “collect and record the history of the School for the purpose of identifying the significant contributions made by faculty and students to the academic life of the university, to the nursing profession and to the nursing community at large.”1 The data collection process began with a review of the historical records held within the School. [...] Barbara Keddy, a long-time faculty member, was a founder of the Nova Scotia Association for Nursing History and a co-founder of the Canadian Association of the History of Nursing.1 The current project was a direct outcome of the fortieth anniversary and the desire to produce a permanent record of the School’s early years. [...] The new history of nursing has engaged in a flight from studies of those formerly glorified instruments of professional (upward) mobility, the professional organization and the school.65 This has left an analy- sis of the university school of nursing either to the nurse administrators or in a state of neglect. [...] Their task was to uplift the community of nurses, the “profession.” While the participants were varied and the goals lofty, the initial story of the Dalhousie School of Nursing concerns diplomas, not degrees.