Elaine Marieb College of Nursing Oral History Project (DRAFT)
In honor of the university’s 150th anniversary in 2013, Robert S. Cox, the late leader of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), spearheaded the Sesquicentennial Oral History Project. This compilation of recordings placed special emphasis on the College of Nursing, collecting stories from faculty and alumni.
A Sampling of Nursing Oral Histories
Selections from the Sesquicentennial Oral History Project.
Alice Friedman
On the beginnings of collective bargaining for Massachusetts nurses:
“I just felt that we should have a right to say something. We worked hard and we should have a right. When this came up for vote, we went to the hearing in Boston at the State House and there were so many people there we had to move over to the auditorium. It was full of nurses.”
Bill Sullivan
On his inspiration for becoming a nurse:
“I was hit by a car. While I was sitting there waiting for the ambulance, watching the ambulance coming all that was going through my mind was ‘what goes through the minds of these people when they are responding to something like this?’ The following year I went into an EMT program and that’s what opened my eyes to the healthcare field.”
Mary Helming
On the founding of the four year UMass nursing program:
“We were the first baccalaureate program in Western Massachusetts. We were told that Mary Maher [founding Dean of the nursing school] was given she should stay in Western Massachusetts and develop that part of the state in terms of nursing. It was not easy at times.”
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