Fonds AFC2 - School of Nursing fonds

The Certificate of Public Health, the first nursing program offered at Western University, was created in 1920 after receiving a grant from the Canadian Red Cross Society to support the program for a three-year period. Resultantly, the Division of Studies for Graduate Nurses was created within the Faculty of Public Health. In 1923, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing was approved by the University Senate. The new nursing program required students to complete two and a half years of hospital training, two years of general arts training, and another year of training in public health nursing. Though the program initially focused on public health nursing, specializations in hospital administration and nursing instruction were added for the last year of the program in 1925. That same year the University of Western Ontario began offering the Certificate of Instructor in Nursing (CIN) and Certificate of Hospital Administration (CHA).

The nursing programs continued to operate under the Faculty of Public Health until 1945, when the Institute and Faculty of Public Health underwent a reorganization. At that time a committee was created to consider the creation of a School of Nursing, separate from the hospital programs and Faculty of Public Health. The committee eventually went on to recommend that the University take over all training of nurses and cease the use of hospital training programs. The Ontario government and the Kellogg Foundation both granted funds to cover three years of administrative costs to create the new School of Nursing. In 1947, the Institute of Public Health was officially dissolved and the School of Nursing took its place, with Edith McDowell appointed as the first Dean.

The School of Nursing continued to expand in the middle of the twentieth century, first with the introduction of a psychiatric nursing program, developed in cooperation with the Department of Veteran Affairs in 1951. That same year the School of Nursing moved to the main campus, relocating from the Institute of Public Health to University College. Two years later, in 1953, an advanced standing BScN was offered for registered nurses who had completed grade 13. The next year, the two certificate programs were changed to be diploma programs, seeing the CIN changed to the Diploma in Nursing Education (DNE) and the CHA changed to the Diploma in Public Health Nursing (DPHN). By 1956 another diploma was offered with a focus in nursing service administration. It quickly became evident that the School of Nursing was going to need its own dedicated space and planning for a new building began. In 1959, the school moved to the top floor of the Natural Science building in the interim and their new building, called the Kresge School of Nursing, opened in 1961. Diplomas at the School of Nursing were eventually eliminated, starting with the DPHN, which was slowly phased out starting in 1965. In addition to traditional educational programs, the School of Nursing started offering seminars to senior nursing executives starting in 1963 and a clinical training program in 1972.

Up until the middle of the twentieth century there were no Canadian graduate-level nursing programs in Canada. As a result, most nursing educators had to further their education in the United States. The University Senate approved the creation of a Master of Science in Nursing (MScN) program at UWO in 1959. That same year the Kellogg Foundation granted the School of Nursing $142 000 to develop it. Applicants to the program were required to have a BScN, BA, or BSc, one year of post-graduate experience, and graduation from an approved hospital school in nursing. In addition to coursework, graduates of the program were required to write a thesis. Zina Hopwood and Sister Mary Elizabeth Campbell were the first students to enter the program. Subsequently, Campbell became the first person in Canada to receive an MScN from a Canadian university. In 1966, the School of Nursing offered a MScN in nursing education to train future nursing educators after a study done by the Royal Commission on Health Services revealed that less than 2% of nurses in Canada held a graduate level education. 1966 also saw the roll-out of a twenty-five-student pilot class for a four-year integrated BScN degree that would be fully controlled by the university. The program received over two hundred applicants in its inaugural year. The change in credentials for registered nurses caused the School to launch a BScN the next year for registered nurses that needed to upgrade their education. In May, 1969 the Board of Governors, on the recommendation of the Senate, changed the name of the School of Nursing to the Faculty of Nursing.