School of Nursing: Connections

From the Deans Desk

Nancy Fugate Woods, Ph.D., F.A.A.N., Dean and Professor

This special issue of "Connections" is dedicated to the more than 10,000 graduates of nursing programs that make up the alumni of the School of Nursing, and to the faculty, staff and administration who have played a role in their education. Nursing education at the University of Washington spans almost the entire 20th century, from home nursing courses offered in response to typhoid and tuberculosis outbreaks in 1915 to modern day nursing studies in advanced practice genetics. From the beginning, one dynamic woman set the standard, stalwart in her belief that nursing education belonged in the university and that a department of nursing could stand on its own as a vital, autonomous entity. This woman was Elizabeth Sterling Soule, the School’s founder and first dean, who in her more than 30 years at the University initiated undergraduate and graduate programs that set new academic standards for liberal arts and professional courses. She also developed a four-year, integrated, academic nursing program which was the first such program in the country in a state university. In Soule’s revolutionary plan, the university was responsible for clinical nursing education while hospitals were responsible for nursing service. Moreover, the university directly supervised the hospital component to ensure quality and consistency of program. This was radical thinking at the time, when hospital diploma schools dominated nursing education nationwide. But it was never a confrontational plan. Soule’s philosophy of promoting the development of all schools of nursing in the state of Washington along with the University school led to rapid professional progress in all programs, and one by one the hospital schools began to move toward university education. She also developed university courses in psychiatric and tuberculosis institutions and public health agencies and made these courses available to nursing students, all of this long before psychiatric clinical experience was a requirement of the nursing curriculum.

Mrs. Soule laid a firm foundation for academic excellence in nursing from which the present generation continues to profit. Two years after the first nursing course was offered, the School was among the first to receive accreditation from the National Organization of Public Health Nursing. In 1932, it became a charter member of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Nursing when its programs exceeded national standards for the first time. Since 1984, when the first nationwide survey of schools of nursing was done, the University of Washington has consistently stood in the top ranks of nursing education across the entire country, if not the world. With this special issue, the School of Nursing honors both its distinguished past and its promising future. It is a legacy all of us can be proud of as we turn the page to nursing education in the year 2000.