Abolishing the Pinning Ceremony

[drem7116]

Hi all,

I am currently a nursing student in a BSN RN program heading into my senior year (woo hoo almost done). I have also been elected Vice President of the Student Nurses Association at my school and today I got hit with a big blow in an officers meeting!! I was advised that the ceremony to honor the culmination of all my and my peers hard work is no longer going to be celebrated; as the school has decided to do away with the pinning ceremony.

Initially, i was at a loss from words. I remembered sitting in my very first nursing class and learning about what a prestigious honor it is to be pinned; to be recognized and welcomed into the the profession of nursing. When I questioned the faculty as to why this decision has been made, there only response was that "The pinning ceremony is more common place in associate programs..." (My school is a BSN program)...they followed with our school "is trying to become a larger school, in terms of the nursing program, and we found that the larger schools no longer have a pinning."

So my question is, is this true? Has it become more common place to not have a pinning ceremony? Is this a long held tradition that has fallen to the way side? If so is there some sort of recognition held in lieu of a pinning? and if so what? Personally, I DO NOT want to let this tradition go and I feel if this is the case it is a shame. Myself and the other officers are trying to gain feedback on this issue. We are also tasked with breaking this information to the rest of our class, whom i feel will be just as upset as I am. However before doing so, we want to have sufficient enough information and a petition prepared in the event the general consensus is to fight for our right to be pinned! Please let me know what you all think of this, or if you have heard that the recent trend is to do away with the pinning and what schools are doing so. My college is located in New York, very close to the city.

Thank you for all your input:)

[tacomaster]

There's a rumor going around that my school will not be having a pinning ceremony for us next year. We are a private University so they are trying to say the pinning ceremony is something state schools do. We've been in existence for over a hundred years. Oh well. I'll just get a group together and do it in the parking lot.

[PediLove2147, BSN, RN]

I liked it because it was a time for just the nurses to be honored. Graduation is so big and it was nice to have a time where my family could see me. I do think the pins were kind of pricey, I would love to pass mine down. If they do away with the pinning ceremony I guess won't have anything to do with it.

[Racer15, BSN, RN]

Pinning is still a big thing at my school. I don't really care one way or the other, and was actually going to skip mine, but my family threw a fit. I have a bachelors degree and went to that graduation ceremony (had no desire to, things like that just don't matter to me, but my mother went nuts when I said I wasn't planning on going), so another ceremony was not big on my things to do list. At my school though, they no longer offer graduation ceremonies for people obtaining their degrees in the fall. Many of my classmates are moving after this month, so for them, pinning is the only acknowledgement of their hard work that they will get.