Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • Page 61

Wednesday, January 14, 1998 THE HARTFORD COURANT 5 Preserving 'Worthwhile' Past Of Nursing School, Now That It's Gone On Aug. 29, 1922, Ona M. Wilcox selected the best stationery to carefully pen her letter of application to the Middlesex Hospital Training School. This young lady, employed as a stenographer and bookkeeper at an insurance company in Mer iden, wanted a change in career, to do "something more worthwhile The materials will be transferred to UConn this month, with the college making a donation to help cover the costs of preservation. Then the time-consuming work of cataloging the collection will begin.

"The part I think will be very valuable is the story about closing the school," said Stolzenberger, who is how director of program development in nursing administration at Middlesex Hospital. "That is what's happening with hospital-based programs, and there is not precedent for how to do it." Hospital Happenings is a weekly column with news from Middlesex Hospital. It's written by local journalist and freelance writer Carolyn Caprioglio. education occurred," Herrmann said. "Having one school's record provides a really good example of some of the changes that have occurred in nursing education." The hospital nursing school in Middletown evolved from a training school (1908) to a diploma-granting program (1932) to a college that awarded an associate of science degree (1991).

Wilcox, one of nine graduates in 1925, played a major role in that evolution, serving as director of nursing service and the school of nursing from 1943 to 1970. During her tenure, the school was one of the first in the country to receive full accreditation from the National League for Nursing. berger said. (Student and personnel records protected by law are being shredded.) Locally, neither the historical society nor the library was equipped to provide the space, preservation expertise, temperature control or convenient access for viewing or research. 'v When Eleanor Herrmann, a nurse historian and emeritus faculty member of the School of Nursing at UConn, came to evaluate the collection, she brought along Thomas Wilsted, director of the Dodd Research Center; and the university archivist, Betsy Pittman.

They were impressed. "Hospital schools were long the tradition, the place where nursing Her employer supplied a letter of reference, stating that Wilcox HOSPITAL HAPPENINGS CAROLYN -CAPRIOGLIO i 1 i rr" 1 v. y. of each class to graduate since the first one in 1909) and a host of other memorabilia will not be lost. They will become part of the Archive of Nursing Leadership at the University of Connecticut's Thomas J.

Dodd Research Center. "I am most proud that we're making these arrangements to preserve the collection," said Kathleen M. Stolzenberger, president of the college since 1994. "It's a very reassuring aspect of closing the school to know that these materials will not just be boxed up and ignored. Preservation allows the college to continue to live through the archive and retain the dignity it deserves as an institution." She is fascinated with the handwritten minutes that date to October 1909 and the albums of photographs that depict the changes in health care and in hospital procedures and equipment over the years.

And she is thankful that records were so carefully retained long after they were no longer needed, providing an unbroken and detailed account of the school. "There is incredible research here in nursing history, women's studies and health care," Stolzen- was "by moral character, disposition, intellect and home environment, an ideal candidate. I have always found her to be faithful, patient and tactful." Wilcox could not have imagined that 76 years later her application -accompanied by the required dental records and X-rays of her feet (to prove they weren't flat), her grades and performance evaluations -would be preserved for posterity as part of the history of the college that bears her name. The Wilcox College of Nursing closed Dec. 31, but the files, minutes, records, ledgers, yearbooks, photographs (including framed portraits fiev; isse maim nn 2 on.

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