Lasting Ties: A well-equipped lab

This article originally appeared in the Fall/Winter 2024 issue of The Bulletin.

By Joe Springer ’80, curator emeritus, Mennonite Historical Library

In Fall 1950, the eight members of Goshen College’s first-ever nursing class were welcomed by a sparklingly new, well-equipped “Nursing Arts Laboratory.” The lab supplanted the easels and paints of the former art room in the southwest corner of the Science Hall’s lower level.

Student Margaret (Brubacher) Pearl ’53 gushed in The Record about the nurses’ medicine cupboard, hot water bottles, sphygmomanometers, a treatment cart “of shining stainless steel,” a linen closet and “two lovely oak hospital beds.” She spoke lovingly of the life-size doll, dubbed “Mrs. Les Turner” (as in “let’s turn her.”)

In addition to the fledgling program’s new facilities, off-campus partnership plans promised even more. Nursing students were to be sent off for high- quality and diverse clinical experience throughout the region: pediatrics (Chicago), psychiatry (Logansport State Hospital), tuberculosis (South Bend) and public health (Elkhart).

All in all, the Goshen College nursing program did not have a humble beginning, but one of high expectations for its students and the future.