Pinning ceremony, no family invites

[rnshade]

I am torn about what to do for my pinning ceremony. The SON administration and faculty just informed my graduating cohort that we will not be allowed to be pinned by our family members. We will be pinned by a faculty member or our cohorts choosing. In addition, our families are NOT INVITED to the pinning ceremony! The only invitees are the administration, faculty and students. I get the point is to bring 'pinning' back to the good old days when student nurses were welcomed in to the profession by actual nurses. But *****! I know a lot of people that have been looking forward to this pinning ceremony and experiencing that with their families. It's not fair to spring this up onto a group graduating class in the middle of their final semester. I feel like times change and we progress. So going back to the olden days of nursing isn't always relative . The graduation ceremony is held by the entire school and is pretty crowed. The pinning ceremony is the last intimate scenario that the entire cohort gets to partake in together. I'm not sure if I should even go. Any advice?

[Emergent, RN]

My advice is to skip it if you aren't up to it and don't like the way it's going to be. In 10 years you won't care anyways. It's just another ceremony, with boring, sanctimonious speeches. I really wouldn't have minded skipping mine.

If you go, accept the way it is and enjoy yourself.

[umbdude, MSN, APRN]

That's pretty lame. We also can't get pinned by family, which is understandable because of the large class size. But we were allowed to invite up to 4 individuals, and students who have fewer invites can "give back" the spots for other students. Our pinning was separate from the university's graduation and our school gave us a huge conference room to do it.

[Double-Helix, BSN, RN]

I can see why those rules would be frustrating. I totally get wanting to share the moment with your family/friends who supported you.

You're also all capable of planning your own get together if that kind of group celebration is important to you. Why don't you and the other students work together and see about renting a room at a restaurant/banquet hall after the pinning? You can all celebrate together, socialize, and share the moment with your loved ones.