President Underwood
, Dean Gunby, distinguished members of the faculty and platform party, families and friends, and most importantly the graduates, I bring you best wishes on this most significant day. It is an honor to stand before you this morning…the class of 2008.
I remember my delight on being asked to speak today. I had a few moments of being impressed with myself—a commencement speaker…then I descended into the anxiety of what to say and how to make it meaningful to match the occasion.
I read countless commencement addresses, and then it came to me . . . it CAME to ME—I could not remember the speaker at any of my graduations or much less what they had to say . . . so I humbly offer the following reflections.
Libby’s Three Lessons for Commencement, whether you are 25, 45 or 65.
Lesson One: Honor your Alma Mater.
You are graduates of a nursing college of great distinction. The Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University traces its origins to 1902 when the second Baptist hospital in the United States founded the Tabernacle Infirmary and Training School for Christian Nurses.
In that year, ten students applied, and four were accepted into that first class; all received diplomas in 1904.
Global education and service-learning are new experiences for some in higher education, but these practices are at the roots of this college of nursing.
In the early 1900s, 5 nurses traveled to China to serve the sick.
In 1903, the Superintendent of Nurses, Miss Bertha Blair (I imagine Miss Bertha would not tolerate any playing around!) accompanied five nursing students to Gainesville, GA, to treat victims of a tornado. They opened a hospital in the courthouse where they remained for five weeks. Now, that is service learning.
In 1911, the Infirmary admitted 22 pellagra patients, giving students an opportunity to work in the first pellagra hospital in the world.
In the 1930s and 40s, students obtained clinical experience in pediatrics at Egleston Hospital, in the University Hospital in Augusta, and in the children’s hospital in Washington, DC. They received clinical experience in psychiatric nursing from Central State Hospital in Milledgeville. You, too, have experiences in hospitals and other settings across the city and state, and you, too, have stories to tell. Remember and share those as the years go by.
In the latter half of the 20th century, nursing education changed dramatically. In 1989, the Georgia Baptist School of Nursing, a leader in diploma education, became the College of Nursing and then granted the B.S. in nursing. And in January 2001, after much strategic planning and negotiation, your fine dean oversaw the College of Nursing’s merger with Mercer University, to the advantage and enhancement of both institutions.
Today, you join the ranks of more than 6000 graduates in the past 105 years. You added a chapter to the story that is the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing.
And at the risk of sounding like the college development officer . . . Honor your alma mater. Make it a habit to give each year, small or large; a future nursing student is counting on you.
Alma Mater, Latin . . . alma mater, fostering mother.
Lesson #2: Honor the profession.
You are entering a dynamic profession—full of opportunity. Nurses comprise the single, largest group of health care professionals in the U.S. with over 3 million nationwide and over 85,000 in Georgia. Nurses hold the future of health care within their reach.
To accomplish this goal, the nursing professional associations and college alumni office need each of you to be involved. Become active in the profession and active as an alumnus.
The nurses of this college have been activist—system-level leaders in the nursing profession. In 1907, the Tabernacle nurses were instrumental in obtaining a charter for the Georgia State Association of Graduate Nurses, which became the Georgia Nurses Association.
You gained a valuable education, one that was denied to many others. Remember in Lesson one when I said that only 4 of 10 applicants were accepted into the first class? One hundred years later, the ratio of qualified applicants to admitted students is no better. All of the graduates sitting here today claimed a seat that at least 3 to 4 other qualified people wanted to fill.
Nationwide over 140,000 qualified applicants were denied entrance into nursing programs in 2005, and each year in Georgia, more than 4000 qualified applicants are turned down.
You have a heavy responsibility . . . Somewhere, today, someone is not a nurse who wanted to be one. You competed, you persisted, you deserve congratulations. May you always honor the privilege that was granted to you and uphold the integrity for which the profession is known.
Lesson Three: Honor Yourself.
Nursing is a complex, highly sophisticated practice, and its occupants can become overwhelmed.
It is no secret that the workforce demand for nurses far outpaces the supply. Vacancy rates across nursing are reported as ranging between 10 and 15%, and the aging of the population will only drive up the demand for health care. The good news about the undersupply is that demand has significantly driven up “real” earnings for RNs since 2000. The less encouraging fact is that the undersupply of nurses may mean long hours, high patient loads, and insufficient resources from time to time.
About one-quarter of nurses leave the profession in their first years of practice; the reasons are multiple. Your profession is a lot like marriage, after a while the honeymoon is over, and to be successful in it, you must settle into a life-time relationship, one filled with equal parts commitment, humor, and self-renewal.
You know how they say on the airplane, “Put on your oxygen mask first, before you attempt to help others?” That applies to all of us. To practice a life-time of caring, whether in the nursing profession or in our personal relationships, we must first help ourselves to be healthy in mind, body and spirit. Those associate degree nurses in the class, who left their practice to further their education and are B.S. graduates today, know and have practiced self-renewal.
Honor yourself. Take time for reflection, regeneration, exercise, and growth. You are a special person in a special profession, you see the extremes of emotions . . . joy and heartache. Every day remember what brought you to nursing, the caring that first excited you, and what you must do to keep that feeling alive.
On a selfish note, I am getting older and those on the stage don’t look so young themselves, and we are counting on you to stay in the profession!
Honor yourself.
The nursing core values call for a culture of caring, of integrity, of affirming diversity, and striving for excellence. That has been the history of the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing. It is now your history.
Libby’s three lessons:
Honor the college.
Honor the profession.
Honor yourself.
I end with this poem . . .
Nursing is an art: and if it is to be made an art,
It requires an exclusive devotion, as hard a preparation,
as any painter´s or sculptor´s work;
for what is the having to do with dead canvas or dead marble,
compared with having to do with the living body,
the temple of God´s spirit?
It is one of the Fine Arts: I had almost said, the finest of Fine Arts.
- Florence Nightingale
Thank you and best wishes.
[Poem is an excerpt from the Florence Nightingale Pledge]
Commencement address given by Libby V. Morris for Georgia Baptist College of Nursing: Sheffield Center, Cecil B. Day Campus of Mercer University, Atlanta, Georgia on May 3, 2008, (56 graduates).