Published
At my MSN commencement, we were each handed the school's pin along with our degree but there was nothing like a traditional pinning ceremony. As noted, "pinning" is connected with (initially) becoming a nurse, so it wouldn't really apply to graduate programs (I suppose the issue is more complicated with direct-entry (for non-nurses) graduate programs; but my school had a large direct-entry contingent and there was no mention of a pinning ceremony).
Fewer and fewer schools are doing pinning ceremonies, even at the undergraduate level. The original pinning ceremonies were the graduation ceremonies of hospital-based diploma schools -- now that TPTB have been largely successful in moving nursing education out of hospitals and into colleges and universities, the graduation ceremony is the college's or university's commencement ceremony. More and more schools see a separate pinning ceremony for nursing graduates to be redundant and unnecessary (and it really fries college/university administrators that so many nursing students skip the commencement ceremony but want to have their own private ceremony). As much as I treasure the memories of the pinning ceremonies at my hospital-based diploma school (where the ceremonies were the official, only graduation ceremony), I agree with that point of view.
Ours does the pinning for all of the MSN programs and the FNP's go last. After they do the pinning, they do the white coat ceremony for the FNP's and then the blessing of the hands for everyone.
nursingfornurses
25 Posts
Did/does your school offer a pinning ceremony for those graduating with a MSN NP? I'm just wondering because I graduated with a BSN a few days ago and I loved the pinning ceremony. It made my graduation special. I want to go to NP school and would love to experience a pinning ceremony again.