Spring 2005

Message from the Dean | Doctor Honors Nurse and Mother | UNM Alumna Endow Nursing Scholarship | Benefactors with Books | Achieving Our Goals is Challenging | It's Celebration Time!

For the UNM College of Nursing, the essence of nursing is being responsive to the health care needs of communities at the local, national and global levels. The College leads by doing and inspires change through innovative teaching, community service, research and leadership. The College is celebrating its 50th anniversary Sept. 16-17, a grand and memorable occasion dedicated to our more than 4,000 alumni and to the faculty, staff and administration who have played an important role in their education. Nursing education at the University of New Mexico spans almost half of the 20th century and our founders, Mary Jane Carter and Marion Fleck, established the basic values and culture of the College that continue to endure. The UNM College of Nursing always has been a major catalyst for change in New Mexican and American nursing education. We have prepared leaders in nursing at the local, state, national and international levels. It has been possible by providing the excellent programs of undergraduate and graduate education, by serving as an academic home for nurse researchers, clinical scholars and exceptional faculty and also by offering abundant opportunities for personal stimulation and growth.

We are preparing a historical profile of the UNM College of Nursing to highlight many of the exciting milestones from our first 50 years. In 1955 Mary Jane Carter, Marion Fleck and President Tom Popejoy used their considerable talents to give life to the College of Nursing by acquiring approval and funding from the New Mexico State Legislature. Within five years the program was fully accredited and the first class of 12 nurses graduated with baccalaureate degrees. Fifty years later, we continue to be a College of Nursing “on the move” with an enrollment of more than 500 students, the largest capacity undergraduate degree programs in the state, nationally ranked graduate programs, a highly regarded accelerated second-degree program, undergraduate and graduate Web-based programs like none other in the state. We are the first college in the state to have a fully approved and implemented Ph.D. in nursing and the first academic nursing residency program in the country. Our graduates pass the state board licensing exam at a rate well above national averages and nearly 70 percent of our more than 4,000 alumni have stayed to work in New Mexico.

There are so many successes to share, from the leadership roles of our alumni to our outstanding current and retired faculty, generous donors, special friends and impressive students who are already proving themselves to be great leaders, too. Please join all of us for a fun, festive and extraordinary weekend celebration Sept. 16-17. We will honor our distinguished past and promising future and turn the page to nursing education in the year 2005!

Sandra L. Ferketich, PhD, RN, FAAN
HSC Deputy Vice President for Interdisciplinary Education
Dean and Professor, College of Nursing