If you walk past the lush vegetation and calming fountain in the western courtyard and enter the main lobby of the University of Arizona College of Nursing in Tucson, you will come face to face with a wall of history and accomplishments dating back to 1957.
The faces of previous deans, faculty, students and staff throughout the years have been ensconced along the façade, archiving several generations of Wildcat Nurses who walked the corridors, participated in simulated training and eventually graduated to make their mark on the world. The UArizona College of Nursing, like the state of Arizona itself, has grown in leaps and bounds across the years, but 2022 represents a special year in its history, as it marks its 65th anniversary.
College Operations senior manager Isabel Chavez, who celebrated her 20th anniversary with the college in 2022, is one of the first people to greet new faculty and staff members, touring them around the building and sharing the history of the organization.
“The 65th anniversary is meaningful to me because I’ve been fortunate to see the college grow significantly,” Chavez said. “I provide these tours because I believe it is important for new hires to learn the history of the program, while getting to know the layout of the building. I believe that when new hires feel connected to their workplace, they feel more welcome and are much happier employees.”
Chavez is also one of the few members of the college who has access to a historical storeroom, which houses numerous boxes of archived materials, photos and documentation stretching back to the very beginnings of the college.
“We have been very careful to keep the College of Nursing original documents, articles, photos and memorabilia,” she said. “In those archival boxes, you can flip through photos of the inaugural faculty and early student cohort photos, or even see an actual nursing uniform from the 1960s. We were recently looking through the items and found the original application that was submitted to the State of Arizona requesting the initial approval for the college to be created. It has all the original signatures and required documents.”
Even through the uncertainty of the pandemic, the future of the College of Nursing has never been brighter. After a look back at the past 65 years, college faculty and staff are focused on the future and continue to usher in “firsts” for the college, including new specialties, programs and ways of teaching. But the goal has always been the same: to discover new modes and methods of nursing science and impart them onto new generations so they can improve the health and wellness of communities around the world.
