Skip to main content

Boston College. School of Nursing

 Organization

Dates

  • Usage: 2003 - present
  • Usage: 1947 - 2003

Biography

The Boston College School of Nursing was established at the request of Richard Cardinal Cushing, archbishop of Boston, who asked that the University begin a baccalaureate nursing program since no Catholic institution in the Archdiocese of Boston offered such a program. The School of Nursing opened its doors on January 27, 1947, with 35 registered nurses enrolled for a bachelor of science in nursing or nursing education. The following September, a group of 27 high school graduates enrolled in the baccalaureate program. It was the first full-time undergraduate program at Boston College to accept women. The school was located at 126 Newbury Street, known then as “Boston College Intown.” Nursing students had to commute to Chestnut Hill on Tuesdays and Thursdays to take their lab classes in Devlin Hall. In 1958, the master's program was established. Cushing Hall, CSON's second home, was dedicated on March 25, 1960, and the following week nursing students and faculty officially moved to BC’s Chestnut Hill Campus. The Ph.D. degree program began in 1988—the first nursing doctoral program to be offered at a Jesuit university. On September 12, 2003, the School of Nursing was named in honor of the late businessman and philanthropist William F. Connell, a member of the BC Class of 1959. In 2015, after more than five decades in Cushing Hall, the William F. Connell School of Nursing moved to its new home in Maloney Hall.

Found in 3 Collections and/or Records:

W. Seavey Joyce, SJ, President’s Office records

 Collection
Identifier: BC-2013-029
Abstract The W. Seavey Joyce, SJ, President’s Office records document Joyce’s tenure as twenty-third president of Boston College, 1968-1972. This collection consists largely of administrative records and contains building plans, committee records, correspondence, departmental records, development records, and faculty and subject files. Subject files contain personal materials, inaugural materials, and materials focusing on student and faculty relations with the administration. The collection also...
Restrictions on access

Collection is closed. Access with permission of office. Departmental records and faculty files containing student records, faculty tenure and promotion files, and other records containing personally identifiable information are closed due to privacy restrictions.

Dates: 1944 - 1974; Majority of material found within 1968 - 1972

Michael P. Walsh, SJ, President's Office records

 Collection
Identifier: BC-2013-028
Abstract The Michael P. Walsh, SJ, President’s Office Records document Walsh’s tenure as twenty-second president of Boston College, 1958-1968. This collection consists largely of administrative records and contains committee, departmental, and faculty files as well as admission records, building plans, correspondence, subject files, and materials relating to the University's centennial celebrations in 1963. Subject files contain biographical information in addition to other topics of interest to...
Restrictions on access

Collection is open for research. Series I. Admissions is closed in its entirety due to privacy restrictions, and is stored off-site. A small amount of material in other series is also closed due to privacy restrictions.

Dates: 1933 - 1982; Majority of material found within 1958 - 1968

Mary Rita Petkauskas papers

 Collection
Identifier: BC-2001-112
Abstract

Contains an autobiography, certificates and albums of photographs and ephemera. Much of the material relates to Petkauskas's work as a professor in the Boston College Graduate School of Nursing and the School's Maternal and Child Health Program.

Restrictions on access

Collection is open for research.

Dates: 1947 - 2000