Commitment to Caring

Minnesota State University's School of Nursing has spent the past 50 years teaching students to care – for themselves, their patients and their communities.

The uniform was almost completely brown, tarnished by layer upon layer of starch and decade upon decade of storage. But underneath that dingy crust, the crisp, white cotton waited for another chance to emerge. And with a little elbow grease and a lot of tender loving care, it did.

"I just kept washing the starch out of it," says Karen Willette-Murphy, an associate professor at Minnesota State University's School of Nursing. She had unearthed the uniform for the School's Golden Jubilee, which took place, complete with a fashion show, in October 2003. "And finally it came out."

Five decades have passed since that very white, very starchy uniform was first worn by the original 28 students in the program. Since then, the School of Nursing has graduated upward of 2,500 students. It has earned accreditation from the National League for Nursing Accrediting Commission, added a master's degree program, branched out with its Continuing "It's not easy. And we make no apologies for that. I know the program is intense and very difficult, but it needs to be. They're caring for human life."
Carol Larson Education offerings and responded to the growing demand for nurses with the recently implemented Accelerated Option program. It has earned high praise from University administrators, from past and present students, and from the health care professionals who employ them.

"We are the best program in the state," says Mary Huntley, a registered nurse and retired professor who served as Interim Associate Dean for the School of Nursing three times during her 30-year career at MSU. "I know this because I've been told that over and over. It's because of the way our graduates perform. Their employers tell us how well-prepared they are. And what makes that happen is the dedication of the faculty."

Huntley is not alone in crediting the faculty for that success. The nursing professionals who teach at MSU – many, including Huntley and Willette-Murphy, who graduated from the program themselves and went on to earn master's and doctorate degrees as well – bring credibility to the classes they offer. But their passion for what they do is what really sets them apart. "We have a great faculty," says Associate Dean Carol Larson. "They really want their students to succeed. They are very, very caring."

That character of caring is perhaps what defines the program more than anything. "Nursing is all about caring," Huntley says. "Caring about people, caring for people, caring with people – those are all very important parts of nursing."

"You could say that caring is part of what got this program going," Huntley says. "People cared about having enough nurses to take care of the community."

MSU's nursing school began at a time of crisis for the profession: the end of World War II prompted many working women to return home and care for their husbands, precipitating a severe nursing shortage from the mid-1940s through the 1950s. Although Mankato's Immanuel Hospital had housed a school of nursing between 1906 and 1932, it was having trouble getting the funds and support necessary to reopen. At the same time, however, Mankato State Teachers College was experiencing great growth and working toward becoming a multidisciplinary university. It seemed natural that nursing could be part of that expansion.

Although incorporating a school of nursing into Mankato's college had widespread support among the doctors, nurses and hospitals in the area, the idea faced an uphill battle at the state legislature. The University of Minnesota School of Nursing, fretful of a threat to its own program, lobbied to defeat the first attempt for state funding in 1949. But after four years and much persuasive negotiating by Mankato "It's not the uniform that makes you a good nurse. ...You don't have to have a uniform to be a nurse, but you can't be a nurse without the ability to care."
Karen Willette-Murphy doctors and MSTC leaders, the legislature unanimously passed the Nurses' Training Bill in the spring of 1953. MSTC had the funding it needed, and by September of that year, the first class came to campus.

That class numbered 28 participants (15 of whom graduated in 1956). Fifty years later, the school has maxed out at 40 new students each semester – although eight additional students have been added to the roster in each of the last five semesters. Beginning in fall 2004, the plan is to admit 48 students per semester. The Accelerated Option program, which moves students who already have an undergraduate degree through the RN program in 16 months, likewise started with six more students than originally planned.

Part of the reason for the increased interest in the profession, Larson says, is the current shortage of nurses in the United States. But there's more to it. "The opportunities for nurses are so much greater now than they ever were before," Larson explains. "It used to be that if you were a nurse, you'd work in a hospital. Now nurses work in clinics, in schools, in industry, in insurance, in the pharmaceutical business. I don't know if there is any other profession in which you can get one degree and do so many different things."

But getting that degree takes a lot of hard work. MSU's clinical program sets it apart from other nursing schools in the state: because the program includes both lowerand upper-division nursing courses, students start their nursing course work sooner and do more clinical work than graduates from other schools. MSU students complete nine clinical rotations, beginning with a skills lab in their sophomore year. By the time they graduate, each student will have logged 840 hours in clinical sites; those come on top of all the science and theory class work that must be completed as well. "It's not easy," Larson concedes. "And we make no apologies for that. I know the program is intense and very difficult, but it needs to be. They're caring for human life."

The caring component is impossible to separate from the rest of the curriculum. Unlike many other scientific disciplines, nursing is by its very nature a combination of knowledge and nurture. "Caring" is so deeply integrated into every aspect of the School of Nursing that it appears in almost every printed piece about the School and comes up in nearly all conversations with faculty and administrators.

That's inevitable, Larson says. Nursing, she explains, is both an art and a science. "The science part is the anatomy and the biology and all of that. The art is the human part."

"Nursing is more than the technical skills," Huntley adds. "It's the ability to think, to know the science as well as the art of nursing. It's not just looking at a patient as one person; it's being able to look at systems of family, work and community and to see what will "It's been extremely impressive the opportunities I've had because of the training I got at MSU. I've never lacked for a job."
Ruth Hantelman ture of what nurses do. We learned the administrative aspects, we learned to be team leaders, to work together for the benefit of a patient."

Hantelman's career in nursing spanned three decades and included stints in both Africa and Haiti. Even in retirement, she continues using her skills to help others. Now battling breast cancer herself, she's helping organize a support group for the children of cancer victims. "It's been extremely impressive the opportunities I've had because of the training I got at MSU," she says. "I've never lacked for a job."

The faculty are rightfully proud of their students' successes, but none of them are willing to take all the credit. They take as much joy from teaching nursing as the students do from learning about it. "The students are just unbelievable," says Willette- Murphy, who earned her undergraduate degree from MSU in 1967 and first taught there in 1971. "They have such dedication and motivation. They want a challenge. And that does not change from year to year, class to class. That's what drives me to teach them. As long as the students are interested in this, I want to teach it to them."

The very white, very starchy uniform was the first to appear. Although it was worn for only three years, its significance as the first student uniform in the school's history was palpable to the students, alumni and former faculty gathered in the Centennial Student Union Ballroom. And as students marched across the stage in each of the 10 subsequent uniforms, the recognition among the crowd grew.

There was the short-sleeved blue dress with a white apron, circa 1965. There was the 1970s-era blue, ribbed polyester dress and the light blue pantsuit option that emerged in 1973. There was the turquoise smock with a cobbler apron that was worn in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"Each time the students walked out, you could hear the alumni saying, 'That's my uniform,' "Willette-Murphy remembers. "They loved it."

And although starch is no longer a staple in a student nurse's wardrobe, the current class had a great time modeling the uniforms of their predecessors at the Golden Jubilee celebration. "The students really valued the history of it,"Willette-Murphy says. "They really appreciated the different eras of the uniforms and were so respectful of the history."

The white pants and purple tops the students wear now are by far more comfortable and easy to wear than the uniforms in decades past. They can be thrown into the washer and the dryer and rarely need to be ironed. "It's more practical now,"Willette- Murphy says. "You don't have to worry about your cap bumping into equipment or about your apron getting wrinkled. You can get in there and be more actively involved."

As proud as Willette-Murphy once was of her wrinkle-free apron, she downplays the role of the uniform in the life of a nurse. "It was a symbol more than anything," she says. "It's not the uniform that makes you a good nurse. It's your education, your decision-making competence. It's your caring attitude, your communication skills. You don't have to have a uniform to be a nurse, but you can't be a nurse without the ability to care."