Who pins you at your pinning ceremony?

[kaybrn]

My school has always allowed students to choose who they wanted to pin them? Now just weeks before our pinning we were informed that we must be pinned by a faculty member. We are very upset because most of us had already asked someone. They said that is the way it is done at all other schools. I was curious who can pin you at your pinning ceremony? Does it have to be faculty member or can it be a family member?

[elkpark]

The original point of the pinning ceremony was that it was the graduation ceremony for hospital-based diploma schools. The pin represented the school putting its final "stamp of approval" on you before sending you out into the world. You were pinned by the director of the school, as the official representative of the school.

Pinning ceremonies in many schools are now so far removed from the original purpose that I wish they'd just quit calling them pinning ceremonies. Getting to choose who pins you makes as much sense as getting to "choose" who hands you your degree when you walk across the stage at a college/university commencement.

No one ever questions how commencement ceremonies are done -- I've never heard anyone argue that, because they've never met the President of the university personally before and that person never taught any of their classes, that person shouldn't be handing them their degree, or that a family member should come up on stage and hand them the degree because the family member understands how much they went through to get it ... No one seems to have any trouble grasping that the president of the university hands you your degree and shakes your hand on that one occasion because you've earned a degree from that school and s/he is the official representative of the school ... Well, the pinning is (supposed to be) the same thing. It's not about who supported you through school, it's about who has the authority to award you the pin (the school, in the person of its official representative).

[handyrn]

My LPN year was done at a Hospital based college program and we did a pinning ceremony. We only had 10 in our class and our class coordinated and planned the whole thing. There was never any question that the program coordinator/primary instructor would pin us, however, since there were 9 females and 1 male in our class and the coordinator/instructor was a male, he chose to hand us our pin instead of actually pinning us.

My RN program was at a college and it was never an issue-there just wasn't a pinning ceremony done. I guess that makes sense and goes along with the idea that it is for hospital based programs.