I don't graduate until November, but since the majority of users will graduate between now and June, I've decided to bring this up now.
To the best of my knowledge, the nursing school Pinning Ceremony comes to us from the time when the vast majority of RNs were educated in hospital-based diploma programs. As with all educational endeavors, some sort of ceremony was needed to mark the completion of the program, and so the Pinning ceremony was created. All fine and good for what was essentially a trade school program.
Thing is, nowadays, the vast majority of nurses are now trained in academic settings - earning ADNs, BSNs, or in rare cases some form of Masters as an entry degree - with a very tiny minority still being trained by hospitals. (In fact, in my state, there's only one hospital diploma program left.) Academic degrees come with academic graduations, with mortarboards, gowns, and the requisite tiresome playing of Pomp and Circumstance (unless you're lucky enough to go to Yale, for whom the song was written and, to the best of my knowledge, subsequently banned from commencement ceremonies for being so banal).
As was hammered into my head time and time again in Nursing Fundamentals, Nursing has for decades been promoting a self-image as a Profession™, and attempting to drag the rest of the world to view it as such. My understanding is that part of being a profession involves recognizing common ceremonies such as academic graduations. Yet, at many schools a pinning ceremony persists alongside or in addition to academic graduation.
My question is, why? Please note, "tradition" is not a sufficient answer: all traditions need to be viewed in light of their history and the functions they currently provide. As I think I've outlined above, both are found wanting where pinning ceremonies are concerned.
