A HISTORY OF NURSING EDUCATION AT THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON, 1917-1988 (OHIO, BACCALAUREATE).
Contributors: University of Akron.
Published: 1996
Number of pages: 363
Subjects: Education, History of.; Health Sciences, Education.; Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: Historians of nursing have asked if the slow growth of baccalaureate nursing education in the United States resulted from lack of desire for it by nurses or whether they were unable to accomplish it. This dissertation describes the development of baccalaureate nursing education at The University of Akron in Akron, Ohio, a Midwestern community with a strong commitment to diploma nursing education. The University of Akron had its first connections with local nursing education during World War I when the Vassar Plan prompted local diploma nursing schools to ask the university for assistance in educating nurses. This connection did not result in any permanent link between nursing education and the university.

During World War II, national economic support for nursing education through the Cadet Corps prompted the University to redevelop relationships with local diploma nursing programs. After the Cadet Corps program closed at the end of the war, the University continued to offer nursing preparatory courses and showed interest in developing baccalaureate nursing education. A five-year baccalaureate nursing curriculum was developed, but it never produced many graduates for work in the local health care system. For eleven years the University conducted three concurrent programs for nurses. There were diploma preparatory classes, a B.S. in Nursing Education degree for graduate R.N. students, and a five-year baccalaureate program which graduated only eight nurses in its eleven years of existence.

In 1957 the five-year baccalaureate program was closed. A four-year baccalaureate program began 1966 and was given College status in 1967. Even with powerful political and funding efforts to support it, the College of Nursing encountered resistance from local diploma schools which did not begin to close until 1984. By that time the cost of diploma student education was increasing and the University college could graduate enough nurses for local employment. Change from a predominance of diploma education to baccalaureate nursing education in Akron took nearly thirty-five years, but, by 1988, University baccalaureate, graduate and continuing education programs were significant in the provision of health care to Akron residents.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-03, Section: A, page: 1054.

Thesis (PH.D.)--THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON, 1996.

School code: 0003.