Vent! They cancelled our pinning!

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Okay, so I just heard today that my school is refusing to let us do a pinning ceremony for the graduating nursing class! They said if you want to "graduate" you can do it like everyone else at the normal graduation, and we'll just give you a pin there too. Take into consideration the school pays for none of this ceremony. It's all money raised by fundraisers, money given mostly by the students. But they are refusing to let us have this ceremony on campus. I still have one year left, so I have a year to fight this but it's totally screwing over (pardon the language) the people that are graduating now. It would be one thing if it was a school tradition to do a pinning, but for goodness sake this tradition has been around for all nurses for forever! We've tried to get the faculty involved, but their hands are tied since it's all the administration that decided this. We've thought about doing the ceremony off campus but to rent a place, and get everything that we need it's would be just too much money. I know the people graduating now are really bummed because they have no chance to fight this. I just don't understand how they can do this! I'm sorry I just had to vent. All i know is i'm going to fight like heck to make sure my class has a pinning ceremony even if it has to be in my backyard! Thanks for listening/reading.

Specializes in being a Credible Source.

I hope you guys figure out a way to get what you want.

Personally, I'm not planning to attend our pinning ceremony. For me, as a 45-year-old man with one professional career behind me, it just has no real significance. I'm not into such things any longer.

I admire your determination to get what you want, though.

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If no other place is available, try a church. Maybe someone in your class attends a church with a large enough sanctuary to host many guests. Also, most churches have a fellowship hall attached to them that would be perfect for after-pinning festivities. Good luck with your search!

This is actually what I was going to suggest! Most churches are much more beautiful than anything at your school anyway. And if the school doesn't want to be a part of this important tradition with you, it's definitely their loss! You'd think they'd want to celebrate their part in your accomplishments. But if they don't, I've no doubt others will! So, yeah, try a church. If it's on a Saturday, and there are no weddings scheduled, I can't imagine they'd mind or that they'd charge very much. Good luck!

:stdnrsrck:

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I am quite offended by how condescending so many people are being about the pinning ceremonies.

I am proud and honored to be a part of my schools pinning. I helped in the planning, preparation, booking, and many other various aspects of this event.

Pinning is something unique and special to the nursing profession. It should be honored and respected. We ARE different from other college graduates. We are nurses. We have experienced school in a way no one else has, and our careers are different than any other. To want a few hours to acknowledge our unique accomplishment is acceptable and should be asked for. Traditions are important. I am very proud of the career I have chosen, and I am thrilled and honored to be involved in a pinning ceremony, which is unique to my chosen career.

I would be furious beyond beleif if my school decided to just 'cancel' our pinning ceremony.

As far as raising money for your pinning ceremony, it can be done! A year is plenty of time. If you would like some ideas for fundraisers let me know. If it were me, I would do whatever it took to make it happen.

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Specializes in DOU.

Personally, I'm not planning to attend our pinning ceremony. For me, as a 45-year-old man with one professional career behind me, it just has no real significance. I'm not into such things any longer.

Yeah, I plan to skip mine, too. I'd rather spend the time with my kids, who haven't been getting enough of my attention during nursing school. Most of my classmates are shocked, and can't believe I'd skip it, but it means nothing to me at all.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.
I am quite offended by how condescending so many people are being about the pinning ceremonies...

It seems that you've taken much offense where none was intended nor even really provoked.

I've reviewed all the threads and I don't think any of the three of us was condescending. We were just expressing our views of why pinning is not significant to us.

I have no problem at all with nursing students having pinning ceremonies if that floats their boat. I was completely sincere in my well-wishes to the OP that s/he find a way to make her wishes come to fruition.

It's OK with me if you think that a nursing education is somehow a special class of education unto itself. I just don't happen to agree. Shouldn't that be OK, too?

To the OP, I again wish you well in your search. You've received a number of excellent suggestions in this thread and I hope that you find a solution for yourself and your classmates.

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Specializes in being a Credible Source.
I'd rather spend the time with my kids, who haven't been getting enough of my attention during nursing school.

No kidding. I'm so sick of telling my six-year-old, "Not now, honey. Daddy has to study."

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Specializes in DOU.
No kidding. I'm so sick of telling my six-year-old "Not now, honey. Daddy has to study."[/quote']

Ouch. Must be tough on you both. Mine are teenagers, but hey! I still miss them! Of course, by the time I am finished, they won't miss ME anymore, but I plan to force myself on them, anyway. :lol2:

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Specializes in NICU.

I loved my pinning ceremony. At our school, the graduating class plans theirs--with the help of students in earlier semesters. The faculty is involved, but we decide who speaks and who pins us--sometimes a faculty member, some years a SO of the graduate.

We held it in a large auditorium off campus so that each graduate (there were maybe 50 of us) could invite who they wanted. My family came and it was a great celebration, not only of what Mom accomplished, but what the whole family had accomplished. All of us with kids know that everyone has to help in order to make NS work :).

After spending two years together, our class had grown close and it was very meaningful to have a final closing ceremony. Most of us were older, with families; maybe for the younger students it would be different. I don't know.

I realize it's old-fashioned and not for everyone (although only a couple of our grads weren't able to make it to the ceremony), but it was still really cool :D.

Several of the grads also attended graduation. I didn't because it seemed so impersonal and I'm old enough I don't need to rite of that, only my diploma :). At the private universities in my area, most have a big convocation (is that the right word?) for the entire school, but smaller ones for each college--nursing, humanities, math, etc. Those are planned by each department and, I assume, vary according to interest.

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Those who do like pinning or the idea of it can skip it. Others clearly are bothered by the loss of this traditional rite of passage. Therefore finding an alternative means of having the ceremony makes sense.

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Ok...just my two cents....but alot of people are forgetting the point of this thread.

This isn't a pinning ceremony vs no pinning ceremony debate.

The pinning ceremony IS important to the OP and her class...she's looking for suggestions on what else they can do.

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The issue with pinning ceremonies is they originated in hospital-based diploma programs, and the pinning ceremony was the graduation ceremony. Now that most schools of nursing are part of a community college or university, the graduation ceremony for nursing students, as for the students in all the other departments/colleges of the larger institution, is the single, school-wide commencement ceremony. A growing number of schools are balking at the idea of the nursing students having their own, additional, private ceremony, and I can see the point of the objections. (Esp. since, in many schools, the nursing students often skip the commencement ceremony and only go to the pinning -- that really ticks off the college/uni administration ...)

As much as I love the tradition and ceremony of the pinning ceremony and cherish the memories of the pinning ceremonies at my diploma school long ago, I have to say that it's becoming increasingly anachronistic and redundant. Nursing students are now the same as the students in all the other departments/colleges of the larger institution, and it's hard to make the case for why they should get special treatment when graduation rolls around ...

(BTW, nursing students organizing and putting on "their own" pinning ceremony makes exactly as much sense as students putting on "their own" commencement ceremony. Makes the whole process meaningless.)

I respectfully disagree.

My husband graduated from a university engineering program, and they held their own, private departmental ceremony, in addition to the regular whole college graduation.

My school cancelled our pinning ceremony- saying things such as "Pinnings are indicitive of diploma programs, ours is an academic program."

I say so what?

Pinnings have become a tradition; a rite of passage for nursing grads.

No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater- programs can emphasize academics without denying grads the tradition of a pinning ceremony.

At my school- we fought back. It was rough and it got nasty, but we got our pinning.

Nurses are supposed to be professionals- well, professionals make their own decisions and steer their own course. Maybe these students' first act as professionals should be to organize their own pinning ceremony.

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I respectfully disagree.

My husband graduated from a university engineering program, and they held their own, private departmental ceremony, in addition to the regular whole college graduation.

My school cancelled our pinning ceremony- saying things such as "Pinnings are indicitive of diploma programs, ours is an academic program."

I say so what?

Pinnings have become a tradition; a rite of passage for nursing grads.

No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater- programs can emphasize academics without denying grads the tradition of a pinning ceremony.

At my school- we fought back. It was rough and it got nasty, but we got our pinning.

Nurses are supposed to be professionals- well, professionals make their own decisions and steer their own course. Maybe these students' first act as professionals should be to organize their own pinning ceremony.

I respectfully disagree back -- the original point of the pinning ceremony (the tradition posters here want to maintain) was that it was the graduation ceremony, the school putting its final "stamp of approval" (the school's pin) on the graduates. For students to organize and put on their "own" pinning ceremony makes exactly as much sense and has exactly as much legitimacy as the students organizing and putting on their own commencement ceremony. If it's not an official act of/by the school, it's pointless and just an imitation or parody of "real" pinning ceremonies. If graduating students want to throw themselves a great party to recognize their own accomplishments, their families' contributions, etc., I think that's a great idea and every graduating class should definitely do that -- but don't call it a "pinning ceremony," because it isn't.

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