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Class of 2024 graduates in the College of Nursing and Health Sciences Faith Clavin, Keyana Clark, Christelle Geffrard, and Elizabeth Uyong received their nursing pins in the May 2.
On Thursday, May 2, students graduating from the College of Nursing and Health Sciences received their pins, recognizing their hard work and dedication towards their coursework and clinicals and their preparedness to go out and serve the broader community. The pinning ceremony is a symbolic welcoming of newly graduated or soon-to-be graduated nurses into the profession of nursing. It symbolizes the graduate’s achievement of completing the educational requirements and marks their transition into the profession of nursing. It signifies the nursing graduate’s official initiation into the enclave of nurses.
The ceremony began with the blessing of the hands through the presence of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit – a way to acknowledge the importance of human touch to the nursing profession while also honoring the spiritual aspects found in the care that nurses render.
It continued and a ceremonial lighting of the lamp and passing of the flame. The lamp represents nursing’s tradition of selfless work and dedication. Florence Nightingale and Mary Mahoney, who are considered the founders of modern-day nursing, used a lamp to tend to the sick and dying to guide them at night. The flame commemorates the ending of one era and the beginning of a new era. The flame is passed from the experienced nurse to the novice nurse.
At the conclusion of the ceremony, the new nurses took the nursing pledge, vowing to abstain from whatever is harmful and to seek those who are ill wherever they may be and whenever they are in need. Nurses pledge to become missioners of health, who are dedicated to the advancement of human welfare.
Commencement activities will culminate with the university’s Spring 2024 graduation ceremony Saturday, May 4, where Ivy McGregor, executive director of Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s BeyGOOD Foundation, will receive an honorary doctorate and deliver the commencement address.
