All university administrative records are closed for 25 years from date of creation.
Records identified in the folder list as containing confidential student or faculty information are closed for 75 years from date of creation.
History and Biography
The School of Nursing was founded in 1892 by the Presbyterian Hospital Board of Managers as the Training School for Nurses. It became the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing circa 1904 and in 1928 moved with Presbyterian Hospital to the new Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in northern Manhattan.
Responsibility for the School’s educational program was assumed by the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1935. This relationship was formalized in 1937 when the University established the Department of Nursing of the Faculty of Medicine, at which time the Director of the School became the Associate Dean for Nursing. However, most of the School’s budget was still funded by Presbyterian Hospital which also continued to own and operate the School’s physical plant. In 1974, the Dept. of Nursing became the Columbia University School of Nursing, though it remained part of the Faculty of Medicine. At this time, the title of the head of the school was changed to “Dean of the School of Nursing.”
Organization
Organized in two series: I. Subject Files; II. Committee Minutes; III. 19271978 Files.
Records of the Office of the Dean of the Columbia University School of Nursing including correspondence, reports, minutes, and statistics. They are largely from the administrations of Mary I. Crawford (1968-1976) and Helen F. Pettit (1976-1981), though there are scattered records dating back to 1941. A wide range of School of Nursing activities and programs are documented, especially curriculum, faculty, research, and student life.
Included are records documenting the dean’s role in the American Association of Colleges of Nursing and in such Medical Center activities as the Joint Allied Health Council, the occupational and physical therapy programs, and the joint degree program with the School of Public Health.
Committee records include those of the admissions committee, the undergraduate and graduate curriculum committees, and the nursing research committee. They include minutes, correspondence, memoranda, and reports.
Material from a separate accession (2016) predates the 2017 accession and is organized into series I. Some of these files contain records pulled from earlier files and compiled for research done at a later date, for example, the file “Tuition and other fees in 1930s-1964” includes material presented to Dean Helen Pettit with a memo from Mary Crawford in 1978.
Subject Headings and Related Records
Administrative Information
Transfer from the School of Nursing, 2017 (accession #2017.017).
One poster entitled “Student Government Association of the Columbia University School of Nursing presents two forums: How Can Nurses Influence the Political Process Now and in the Future?” April 19 and 26 [1979?], was removed from Box 5, folder 9 and is now housed in Miscellaneous Oversize Materials (25 inches x 21 inches), Box 1, folder 7.