help me buck the system, please! super-traditional pinning ceremony that nobody wants

hypnotic_nurse · Jan 14, 2005

We wore whatever we wanted to wear -- underneath a RENTED traditional graduation gown for both men and women (ours were white; although I guess you can get them in just about any color). This might be a nice compromise -- it is far more traditional than white dresses...cheaper than buying a dress...and everyone did look really nice.

Oh, and the only cap that goes with the gown is a graduation cap, of course...NOT a nurse's cap. And (again) worn by both men and women.

ldynwht · Jan 14, 2005

Hi all-
I'm posting this in the general discussion rather than the student discussion, as I want to hear from people who were successful in doing something like this.
I'm the president of my ADN class, graduating this May. We have 17 students, 14 of them women. Our faculty is, almost entirely, *extremely* conservative, and the school is in a very small town. Our pinning ceremony is held in a church, and has pretty significant christian religious overtones, which I have a problem with; I think it's an inappropriate blurring of the line between church and state (this is a state-funded community college), and I've had a few students express discomfort with having the ceremony in this church. By the way- it's only held there for faculty preference; there's plenty of room on campus.
My main concern, though, is the attire for the ceremony. We're being forced to wear white dresses and caps. Now, we have to wear the caps in most clinical rotations, which is enough of an indignity (people think we're kidding, that other staff members are playing practical jokes on them by sending students in the room with caps on...it's nauseating, but I've tried to change this with no success). But I think it's ludicrous to insist we wear them at the pinning ceremony. It's *our* event, not the faculty's. In my opinion, the requirement that women wear dresses is inappropriately sexist, and from a logistical standpoint, *nobody* should be spending money on a white dress that will gather dust forever, when we have the expense of the NCLEX looming in our immediate future.
We have one student who wants to wear a white dress, and the others are adamantly opposed to it. I'm looking for ways to approach the program director with alternatives...I think that I need to have some suggestions, or he's just going to shut it down completely. Personally, this issue is important enough to me that I won't attend the ceremony if we have to wear the dresses. I know of at least 2 other women who plan to do the same thing.
My current plan is to have a meeting with the director and my vice-president to discuss the feelings our class has about the issue, and suggest a couple of alternatives- wearing nice, 'dressy' outfits, or wearing our clinical uniform (white smock and lab coat with navy pants). I'd like to hear from anyone else who had to address this issue, and how you resolved it. I'm also open to any suggestions *anyone* has...this director is extremely old-fashioned (he said he'd have us all wearing black stockings and orthopedic shoes, if he had his way), but he also respects me *specifically* because I'm confident and outspoken. By the way, if this were not the prevailing feeling of the other class members, I'd just skip the ceremony...I'm treating it like a class issue because I feel that's my role as the class president.
Also, please don't try to convince me we should be wearing the dresses. I don't really give a hoot about someone else's traditions that encourage disrespect and sexism, so the 'traditional' nurse's uniform is something I refuse to ever put on my body. I find the caps degrading enough...I am a medical professional in training, and there's nothing more irritating than having a doctor or nurse or patient say, 'how *cute*!!' when I walk into a room. If you disagree with me, I certainly respect your opinion, but I am absolutely certain of my position on this subject.

I also had to wear a white dress and stocking to my graduation, it was the same sickening outfit I had to wear to clinicals everyday. The administrator of my school said , "The bigger girls look better in a dress." To say the least she was conservative. All through school we tried to get the dress code changed, we also tried to get it changed for graduation but it was all a no go. We also had graduation in a church. Even though I was not happy about any of it, I would not have missed my graduation for anything. I worked my butt of and I was proud of my accomplishments. My family supported me, struggled with me and scarificed for me, they deserved to see me graduate as much as I deserved it.

rnmi2004 · Jan 14, 2005

I applaud you for being a great advocate for your fellow nursing students. They've got a great class president!

I suggest you collaborate with the other students to come up with a written proposal outlining your wishes for the ceremony. After all, it is supposed to be something to celebrate *your* success--the students' input should be considered.

Since the students feel that strongly about it, if you can't get the facility to take your class' desires into consideration, you just may have to skip the pinning ceremony and stick with the college's graduation ceremony. Your family & friends will still get to help celebrate your graduation, and it will send a strong message to the nursing faculty and it could prompt a change that will benefit future graduates. Or, as another alternative, the students could come up with their own pinning ceremony elsewhere.

Good luck! I'm interested to know how this will turn out.

BadBird, BSN, RN · Jan 14, 2005

I totally understand how you feel, as I felt the same way. Our nursing administration refused to budge. Believe me if you skip your ceremony it won't mean anything in 10 years after busting your butt. Look forward to passing the NCLEX and forget the ceremony if it upsets you so. Why some "old" educators insist that nurses look so ridiclious is beyond me. Good luck to you and your fellow graduates.

HappyNurse2005, RN · Jan 15, 2005

our nursing class had always worn white dresses as well, and just this year, we got permission to wear white pants and a white dressy top. here is what we did

first, find an acceptable outfit

we picked this top:

http://www.allheart.com/ck1743.html

you'll have to click on the pic to enlarge, but the collar and top of pockets have a satin trim stripe. then we wear white scrub pants, we got to pick straight leg or more flare leg pants. we also must wear clean white dress shoes or nursing shoes, no sneakers. i'd print out pictures of the uniforms you want. show them to all of your classmates and get them all to sign something saying they all approve of this shirt/pants uniform, to show your instructors that the class is unanimous. then go present to them the choice you have made, the support that your class shows for it, and good reasons-your class does not like the dress, and think that the pants would be more comfortable and more flattering for all body types, etc.

it worked for us. we got approved to wear pants for our pinning this year

rose

begalli · Jan 15, 2005

Our pinning ceremony was completely up to us. Thought up, planned, excuted, and funded by our class. We chose which instructors we wanted to place the pin on us and the other instructors were invited as guests just like our families and friends. The pinning ceremony was held the evening before the school's official graduation.

The school has a Student Nursing Organization which advocates for students, supplies student nurses with discounted equipment needed for school, and funds the pinning ceremony with money collected through fund raising and alumni donations. The SNO also gives out one scholarship to a nursing student each quarter.

Each class chooses how they want their pinning ceremony to be. I don't know of any class that chose not to have a pinning ceremony. We all purchased our own pins. Generally speaking, the women wore dresses or nice pants and the men wore dress pants and a nice shirt. As the students were called up to receive their pin they were all given the opportunity to say something. Some did, some did not.

After our class president delivered a short speech and all the students were pinned we all went back to our seats (the class was set up in the middle with the audience surrounding them on three sides with the class facing the stage) and stood to recite the Nightingale Pledge and as we recited it, our class president lit a candle on a little lamp (you know, the lamp of knowledge lamp) and lit the candle on the student's lamp who was standing next to her, and then that person lit the lamp next to her, and so on until all the lamps were lit. It looked very cool as the sun was setting on a warm spring CA evening.

We choose to hold this ceremony on campus in a garden area. Some classes did it in restaurants or a hall or something like that. After the ceremony, we had a nice reception with finger foods and non-alcholic drinks.

It was very nice. I think the key to the success of our pinning ceremony is that the students paid for it, planned, it and were totally responsible for it.

allnurses Guide · Jan 15, 2005

We were also allowed to chose how we planned our pinning and what to wear except the head of the nursing dept. actually discouraged us from doing a pinning because it was not seen as professional. We did it anyway.

It was held off campus the night after graduation at the community college I attended. At the Elks Lodge.

The biggest controversy was that part of the class wanted to wear traditional white with caps and the other wanted to wear dressy outfits of our own choosing. The second group won out.

We could choose who we wanted to be pinned by - most chose family members. My 9 year old daughter pinned me. Only one teacher pinned anyone and that was her nephew. In fact the teachers were not supposed to come but three brave ones did.

In a way, if the school is putting on the ceremony, they have a right to some say in how it is done. If you are doing it yourself off campus, then you can do whatever you want.

I'd love to have it in a church. Our high school baccalaurate is held in a lovely old fashioned church here . . . I'll see if I can post a photo of the church.

Best of luck. I enjoyed my pinning.

steph

rach_nc_03 · Jan 15, 2005

Our pinning ceremony was completely up to us. Thought up, planned, excuted, and funded by our class. We chose which instructors we wanted to place the pin on us and the other instructors were invited as guests just like our families and friends. The pinning ceremony was held the evening before the school's official graduation.
The school has a Student Nursing Organization which advocates for students, supplies student nurses with discounted equipment needed for school, and funds the pinning ceremony with money collected through fund raising and alumni donations. The SNO also gives out one scholarship to a nursing student each quarter.
Each class chooses how they want their pinning ceremony to be. I don't know of any class that chose not to have a pinning ceremony. We all purchased our own pins. Generally speaking, the women wore dresses or nice pants and the men wore dress pants and a nice shirt. As the students were called up to receive their pin they were all given the opportunity to say something. Some did, some did not.
After all the students were pinned we all went back to our seats (the class was set up in the middle with the audience surrounding them on three sides with the class facing the stage) and stood to recite the Nightingale Pledge and as we recited it, our class president lit a candle on a little lamp (you know, the lamp of knowledge lamp) and lit the candle on the student's lamp who was standing next to her, and then that person lit the lamp next to her, and so on until all the lamps were lit. It looked very cool as the sun was setting on a warm spring CA evening.
We choose to hold this ceremony on campus in a garden area. Some classes did it in restaurants or a hall or something like that. After the ceremony, we had a nice reception with finger foods and non-alcholic drinks.
It was very nice. I think the key to the success of our pinning ceremony is that the students paid for it, planned, it and were totally responsible for it.

Begalli,

I like the fact that each class at your school planned their own ceremony. The ironic thing about our ceremony is that each class pays for the ceremony of the class ahead of them...we were required to have a fundraiser last year- we raised almost $2,200, which is a lot for such a small group- and paid for the ceremony for the graduating class of 2004. (They didn't have any say in the ceremony, either).

You bring up a good talking point for my proposal- the students are paying for the ceremony out of pocket, albeit a year early.

We also have to purchase our own pins, and I'm seriously considering not buying one. They're $65, and they have the year the program was founded (1989), not my graduating year. No personalized engraving, no nothing. Maybe this is 'traditional', but I have a tough time swallowing that amount of money for a pin that says 1989 on it. I'm paying my own tuition, fees, etc, and working full-time...I have major surgery coming up over spring break, and i'm in the process of leaving my husband and getting my own place. I do *not* have $65 to throw away on a pin that will, most likely, never come out of the box after the ceremony.

Another poster suggested graduation gowns....I think that would serve exactly the same purpose, and can be rented cheaply. (For the vast majority of us, *anything* cheaper is better!)

Thanks for all your great suggestions...it's wonderful to get a different perspective on these things, since sometimes you can be too close to a situation to see it clearly.

fiestynurse · Jan 15, 2005

My 1978 graduating class took a vote and decided against the caps. We had a pinning ceremony at the school. We all wore nice dresses or business suits. Refreshments and snacks afterwards. We had 100% participation and it was very nice rememorable moment for me.

I would be bothered by the church location also and the caps. Are you joining a nunnery?

Malt123 · Jan 15, 2005

My 1978 graduating class took a vote and decided against the caps. We had a pinning ceremony at the school. We all wore nice dresses or business suits. Refreshments and snacks afterwards. We had 100% participation and it was very nice rememorable moment for me.
I would be bothered by the church location also and the caps. Are you joining a nunnery?

are there still nursing caps being worn? I thought we got rid of them because of how dirty they were

jetsetter · Jan 15, 2005

I support you in your position, but I would also urge you not to skip your pinning over this. You have earned the right to be there, even if the circumstances are not exactly what you would like. You should be proud of your accomplishments, and have earned the right to celebrate this day. Please don't let the details overshadow all you've done to finish school.