Pinning Ceremony for nursing students

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Specializes in LDRP, Wound Care, SANE, CLNC.

I am graduating in the spring of this year, and it is a tradition to have a pinning ceremony. Can you tell me how your college works your ceremony? Do they provide the pins? Do they " throw" you the party or do you "throw" it for yourselves? I am having a very hard time with the fact that my school dose NOTHING to give us this ceremony, it is all student run, paid for and coordinated. It just chaps my hide that we are expected to give our selves this " important traditional ceremony". Maybe it is because our " lab fees" were increased by 1000.00$ per term last year, with NO improvements in lab. ( we were told it was really for the general fund only). Oh, and to frost my chapped back side even more, the pin for the ceremony is 45$ ( that is the cheapest one) and most of the class can not afford that after the 135% tuition increase per term.

Is my situation the normal? Or are we getting jipped? IMHO ( In my humble opinion) There are few things more pathetic that throwing yourself a party!

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I am also graduating in may as well and we have to buy our own pin and we also have to buy a "uniform" for graduation which is the Florence Nightingale white skirt and shirt and hat and we also all need to by this tourch thing to say our nursing poem. so i'm assuming all the schools are basically the same. I heard that the fees for us for graduation almost comes to $500.

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Far back as one can remember, and through research, graduating nurses always paid for their own caps, pins, lamps, and the whole regalia required at the ceremony. Remember going with many friends graduating from nursing schools here in NYC to the various uniform stores to pick out what uniform they would wear at graduation, and sometimes the cap as well.

Some schools supplied the "graduate nurse" cap to be used at graduation, included in whatever fees one paid for the "graduation kit", others asked students to purchase a new school cap that would have bands applied before graduation (if any).

As for parties, many diploma schools back in the day and still today will give a luncheon or tea for the graduating class and their family/guests. Often again part of this was funded out of graduation dues, or the school merely gave it out of their own pocket.

College and university programs run the gamut, and lately the trend has been not to distinguish nursing grads from the rest of the graduating class, so no caps, pins, whites or all that. You wear a normal college graduation gown and cap, period. Here again sometimes the nursing department may throw some sort of "event" for the graduating class, often times however things are left up to the students themselves.

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We get nothing toward the pinning ceremony from my CC. It's all on our own. The college maintains the standard graduation ceremony for those interested.

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Specializes in LDRP, Wound Care, SANE, CLNC.

Graduation and the pinning ceremony are completely separate at my CC. The nursing club is responsible for raising funds for the pinning ceremony. With one fund raiser we have raised over 700$ so maybe we will have a good one after all. Still chaps my hide that we have to throw ourselves this " tradition".

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Pinning ceremonies date back to the days when the only nursing programs were hospital-based diploma programs, and the "pinning ceremony" was the school's graduation ceremony. Now that the vast majority of nursing programs are colleges and universities (yes, I know there are still some diploma programs out there -- I'm a proud diploma grad myself), the graduation ceremony for nursing students is the college/university-wide commencement ceremony, and "pinning ceremonies" are pretty much redundant. More and more schools are balking at the idea of spending money to provide a special, separate ceremony for nursing students, that they don't provide for students graduating with other majors, and I can see their point. (Having taught in both ADN and BSN programs, I can also tell you that it really ticks off the college/uni administrations that so many nursing students skip commencement exercises but want (or expect) the school to have a pinning ceremony for them. Creates a lot of negative feelings about the nursing program through the rest of the college/uni.)

To me, this is another example of the "law of unintended consequences." The larger nursing community thought it was really important that we move nursing education out of hospital-based schools and into colleges and universities and make it an academic degree program like all other academic degree programs. Now we've done that (for the most part), and the graduation ceremony and tradition in these institutions is the traditional academic commencement exercise, in cap and gown. IMHO, nursing can't have it both ways -- we got what we said we wanted, and it's time to move on (away from pinning ceremonies) and embrace (or at least live with) the traditions of the colleges/universities.

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Pinning ceremonies date back to the days when the only nursing programs were hospital-based diploma programs, and the "pinning ceremony" was the school's graduation ceremony. Now that the vast majority of nursing programs are colleges and universities (yes, I know there are still some diploma programs out there -- I'm a proud diploma grad myself), the graduation ceremony for nursing students is the college/university-wide commencement ceremony, and "pinning ceremonies" are pretty much redundant. More and more schools are balking at the idea of spending money to provide a special, separate ceremony for nursing students, that they don't provide for students graduating with other majors, and I can see their point. (Having taught in both ADN and BSN programs, I can also tell you that it really ticks off the college/uni administrations that so many nursing students skip commencement exercises but want (or expect) the school to have a pinning ceremony for them. Creates a lot of negative feelings about the nursing program through the rest of the college/uni.)

To me, this is another example of the "law of unintended consequences." The larger nursing community thought it was really important that we move nursing education out of hospital-based schools and into colleges and universities and make it an academic degree program like all other academic degree programs. Now we've done that (for the most part), and the graduation ceremony and tradition in these institutions is the traditional academic commencement exercise, in cap and gown. IMHO, nursing can't have it both ways -- we got what we said we wanted, and it's time to move on (away from pinning ceremonies) and embrace (or at least live with) the traditions of the colleges/universities.

Can see colleges and universities point, I mean *nothing* stands out more in a dark graduation hall than rows of nursing grads in brand new whites and caps (back when they were part of any nursing grad ceremony). When the call goes out for "candidates for .... in nursing" or whatever to begin lining up and marching towards the stage, it almost seems like the roar from friends/family is somewhat greater than for other potential degree holders.

Be all this as it may, many college nursing grads do want a pinning and sometimes capping ceremony if for nothing else as link to "nursing past". Despite the fact they are virtually never worn on duty in the United States anymore, some nursing grads still want that cap. If they only knew that back in the day a large percentage of GNs kept the thing on just to get through graduation and for picture taking. Afterwards it went into a box and pushed deep into a closet or drawer never to see the light of day again.

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Nicole831,

Where would you purchase the Florence Nightingale white skirt, shirt, and hat?

My daughter's university had the BSN, MSN, and all the other nursing graduates in the same massive coliseum with all the other graduating students in varying degrees. The only thing that distinguished the nurses from everyone else in caps and gowns was that the nurses decorated the tops of their caps. I wish that her university had a seperate ceremony for the nurses but they don't. I guess everyone wants what someone else has and visa versa.

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For our pinning ceremony, our cc gave us a flower and certificate. The student association made enough to buy us all a 5x7 of the class. We had to buy our own pin ($80-100) and we had to plan our own personal parties. We were allowed to wear any white uniform we wanted.

I graduated last December, but graduation for the CC isn't until May. I'm not going..I just wanted to attend the pinning ceremony.

Forgot to add that 5 years ago when I graduated from my LPN school, they supplied the pin and the dress. We did have a little party after with cake and punch. We also wore our caps.

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Nicole831,

Where would you purchase the Florence Nightingale white skirt, shirt, and hat?

My daughter's university had the BSN, MSN, and all the other nursing graduates in the same massive coliseum with all the other graduating students in varying degrees. The only thing that distinguished the nurses from everyone else in caps and gowns was that the nurses decorated the tops of their caps. I wish that her university had a seperate ceremony for the nurses but they don't. I guess everyone wants what someone else has and visa versa.

Not "Nicole" (obviously *LOL*), but you can order caps("hats" from Kays Caps, here in NY

http://www.kayscaps.com/index.htmlWhile most of their stock is generic, you can ask if they have your daughter's nursing school's cap in stock or the template to run one up. Some schools have restrictions on whom can purchase their caps, even if the thing is no longer worn by students or many graduates for that matter, so don't be surprised if Kay's asks allot of "questions" or says some sort of proof is required that the person you are requesting the cap for is entitled to wear it.

As for the "Florence Nightingale" quote, think the OP meant regular "whites" or nursing uniform.

Recent LPN graduation ceremony showing whites and generic cap:

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/news/2010/feb/04/nursing-school-graduates-its-50th-class/

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The pinning is traditionally planned by the students so each class can "make it their own." If you don't want to go you don't have to; you become an RN either way (after the NCLEX)......so who cares? Don't go if you think it's pathetic.

Gayrab, RN

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The pinning is traditionally planned by the students so each class can "make it their own."

This, to me, is another example of how distorted the idea and vision of the pinning ceremony has become (I'm not singling out or criticizing this particular poster -- it's a common idea voiced here). Students planning and putting on their "own" pinning ceremony makes exactly as much sense as having students plan and put on their own commencement exercises, which I doubt anyone would suggest. It's not "tradition" for students to plan the ceremony -- the tradition is that the school put on the ceremony, the same as colleges and universities provide the commencement exercises for their graduates. And students have no input into the commencement beyond, perhaps, choosing a few speakers (which is how pinning ceremonies used to work, back when they meant something). "Pinning ceremonies" have gone from being the official graduation ceremony of a (hospital-based) school of nursing to being some sort of great party that students put on for themselves and they pretend it's something official. By all means, throw yourselves a great party -- you've certainly earned it -- but don't call it a "pinning ceremony," because it's not.

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