Pinning ceremony

fab4fan · Jan 21, 2003

Our school held the pinning ceremony immediately before graduation. It was held in the hospital chapel, and the ceremony was basically a Mass, with the pins being blessed by the priest.

If your beliefs conflicted with the ceremony, you were basically out of luck. You either attended, or you had to wait til afterward to get your pin.

Our capping was similar to what Rainbow described, except we didn't have any ceremony for getting our black bands...they just handed out the bands at the beginning of the year.

Of course, the school has long since closed. I lost my original pin, but was able to get a replacement through Josten's.

Angelica · Jan 21, 2003

My school has a pinning ceremony. I would be just as happy if they didn't, since I'm not much into ceremonies (I got married at Circus Circus in Vegas).

CountrifiedRN · Jan 21, 2003

I've never heard of getting a black band. What is it symbolic of?

Angelica - Circus Circus is a cool place!

jschut, BSN, RN · Jan 21, 2003

We had one. It was held in a nearby town, in their gymnasium. My Mom came from northern Ohio, my best friend came from northern Ohio, and the biggest most wonderful surprise of all...my brother came from Georgia! (He was part of my graduation present....hadn't seen him in a coule of years, so that was the best!)

We all dressed in white (supposed to be scrubs or nursing uniform~and I'd like to see some of the girls working in what they wore! LOL!)

We all walked across the stage and were introduced and pinned. I cried, my hubby cried, my Mom cried and my bro was the loudest yeller of all!

We carried candles and as we came off stage, we surrounded the auditorium, lit the candles as a beautiful song played.....

Very traditional, very touching....

Wouldn't have traded that night for anything! :)

Vsummer1 · Jan 21, 2003

We have one, but I dont' know the details. All I know is we started fund raising to pay for it. I guess we must pay for the pins as well as anything else we want as the school won't provide anything.

Dr. Kate, BSN, RN · Jan 21, 2003

Got my AA and BSN from different campuses of the same school. For both pinning was separate from graduation. When I got my AA the dean of the program pinned each one of us and gave us a rose. In the BSN ceremony, each graduate had someone special pin them. My Mom (an RN) pinned me, and even now I get weepy over that one (which really was superfluous in my case, though the pins were different.)

I don't see too many people wear their pins these days. I did for years but stopped because the clasp was loose and my original pin was only used for 3 years and I will not lose it.

It seems to me, it wouldn't be all that hard to have your own ceremony. There really is something special about that acknowledgment that you made it.

essarge · Jan 21, 2003

Our school has a "progression" ceremony at the sophomore level...kind of a "way to go" celebration. They are given Lantern pins. As seniors they have the traditional pinning ceremony on Saturday night and graduation on Sunday (I will undoubtedly have a hangover!! LOL!). But it's all very nice. I wish that they would "cap" us also...tradition is a wonderful thing and should not be left by the wayside!

Stargazer · Jan 21, 2003

Our pinning ceremony was held a few hours before the university graduation ceremony. It was in the campus chapel, but I don't believe there was any religious service involved. We all wore white nursing uniforms and caps. I had to borrow a cap because I had transferred to this school from a college that didn't issue caps any more!

I really don't remember whether we were given or carried roses. I remember that 2 of my classmates wrote and sang an original song they'd written specifically for the occasion. As a class, we had voted on which of our instructors we wanted as a guest speaker. She gave a rather--ahem--bracing speech about the state of the profession and what we would be facing. (As I walked out with my family, my oldest brother--sarcastic bastard that he is--said dryly, "Well, that certainly added a note of gritty realism.") Then we all came up one at a time and got our pins, and then had a group picture taken.

(Afterwards, there was a reception which I attended only briefly. Most of us ended up rushing off to dinner with our families before the main graduation. A few of us might've had a drink or two with dinner--we were pretty damn rowdy before and during the actual ceremony. All the music and engineering and liberal arts wonks kept turning around to stare at us disbelievingly, like, what is WRONG with these people? It was hilarious.)

I love my pin. I used to wear it on my hospital badge along with my 5-year pin, and people often commented on it.

hey_nurse · Jan 22, 2003

My school had a pinning ceremony the day before graduation. I t was very nice. We were asked to have a special person in our lives pin us. I asked my husband and my Mom to pin me. It was very emotional and a great memory.:)

RainbowSkye · Jan 22, 2003

Black banding refers to getting a black band for your nursing cap. At my school we had no band for our freshman year, a narrow band for our junior year and a wide band for our senior year. Our bands were velvet and were worn horizontally at the top of the cap. When we graduated we went back to a cap with no band. Go figure. Haven't worn that cap in over 25 years, but I still have it somewhere.

essarge · Jan 22, 2003

I found this at a website (http://www.civilization.ca/hist/infirm/inban01e.html) while I was "surfing"...hope this answers some of your questions about stripes on caps

Many, but not all, nurses' caps had coloured bands which indicated level of training. At the Hamilton and District Regional School of Nursing, for example, first year students wore white bands (1999.267.35), second year students, pink bands (1999.267.37), and graduates, black bands (1999.267.36). Black invariably indicated the graduate nurse, while other colours were used to indicate the first and second year of training. Some say that the black band was introduced as a memorial to Florence Nightingale. The use of bands may also have had its origin in the bands or stripes on military uniforms, and certainly the graduate black had a military look. But interestingly, undergraduate colours such as pink, turquoise or yellow were more traditionally feminine.

There are several reasons why nurses' caps, along with the rest of the uniform, began to disappear in the 1970s. As nursing became more professionalized, nurses wanted to identify more with doctors and other professionals who wore no uniform. At the same time, hospitals started employing ward aides and nursing assistants, who were also outfitted with caps, and subsequently the authority of the graduate nurse's cap was eroded.

In the 1960s to 1980s, hospital schools of nursing gave way to community college and university schools. The apprenticeship system of teaching, with its ritualized progress through the ranks, no longer dominated nursing education, and thus the cap lost much of its symbolic meaning as a signifier of achievement at various levels.

Male nurses have never worn caps. In recent years nursing leaders have tried to encourage more men to enter nursing, and sex-specific uniforms conflict with the larger goal of attracting men to the profession.

CountrifiedRN · Jan 23, 2003

Thanks, RainbowSkye, for the explanation of what a band is, and essarge for the history behind them.

When I saw the posts about the black bands, I wasn't even associating them with the nursing caps. For some reason I was picturing a band you wear around your arm?!?

Sounds like it was a nice tradition, and I never knew that the stripes on the caps denoted level of training. Pretty interesting.