By Marie Mulvenna

St. Joseph’s Infirmary School of Nursing, will graduate its final class of nurses on Sunday when 24 students takes part in graduation exercises which will be held at Sacred Heart Church at 2:30 p.m. Archbishop Thomas A. Donnellan will preside at the graduation.

St. Joseph’s School of Nursing was founded in 1900 and graduated its first class in 1903. Since that time, the school has graduated approximately 1,320 nurses and was one of the first schools in Georgia to be accredited by the National League for Nursing, an accreditation that is still in effect.

The school has had legal authority to issue diplomas in nursing since 1902 and is currently approved by the Board of Examiners of Nurses for the state of Georgia.

In 1965, a position paper was published by the American Nurses Association upholding that education for those who work in nursing should take place in institutions of learning within the general system of education. St. Joseph’s endorsed this philosophy and in 1966 set as a goal the phasing out of its diploma program once Georgia State University had sufficiently established its nursing program to take care of the nursing needs of the community that were currently being supplied by St. Joseph graduates.

By 1970, Georgia State seemed to have a thriving nursing program, so approval was obtained from the hospital’s board of trustees for St. Joseph to phase out its school over the following three years, graduating its final class of nurses this year.

Sister Mary Kristen, RSM, has been director of the nursing school for the past 10 years and expressed her appreciation to the trustees, administration and faculty for their support and cooperation.