Nursing students get white coats at Nightingale ceremony

Rebecca Keating-Lefler, Ph.D., back row fifth from left, and nursing dean Virginia Tilden, D.N.Sc., back row far right, with the “non-traditional” students of this year’s first-year nursing class.

Nearly 50 first-year UNMC College of Nursing students were inducted into the nursing program on Friday evening at the Nightingale White Coat Ceremony in Omaha.

The event, sponsored by UNMC Alumni Relations and Gammi Pi at-large chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International, drew a large crowd that nearly filled one of the 220 seat amphitheaters in the Sorrell Center.

The students received white coats, took the Florence Nightingale Pledge and heard from:

• Virginia Tilden, D.N.Sc., dean of UNMC College of Nursing;
  
• Rebecca Keating-Lefler, Ph.D., president of the college’s alumni association;
  
• Connie Miller, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of the Learning Resource Center; and
  
• Louise LaFramboise, Ph.D., the college’s director of undergraduate programs.