UBC Nursing Class of 1975

There is a lot to mention about the UBC Nursing Class of 1975. Two of the School’s faculty members – Cathy Ebbehoj and Joanne Ricci – come from this class. Also, the College of Registered Nurses of BC honoured a member of this class, Val Munroe, in 2013 with an Award of Excellence in Administration, and this year Joanne Ricci will receive an Award of Excellence in Teaching. We caught up with Joanne Ricci, lecturer at the UBC School of Nursing as she shares with us how the members of her class continue to stay connected with one another, their experience studying and working as a practicing nurse while obtaining their undergraduate degree in the UBC Nursing program.

Forty years is a long time to maintain connected with members of your class. What do you think it is about this group that has kept up this motivation and effort to stay connected and up to date with one another?
We were quite a socially well connected group during our undergraduate years. We had a small class size (37 or so of us) so it was fairly easy to stay in touch. During our studies, we always managed to do a great job of balancing work and play! For a good portion of our graduate year and thereafter, we continued to work in nursing, many of us for a very long time, for 25 to 30 years. There are still a few of us working in the nursing profession but many have retired in the last few years. I believe that the education we received from UBC gave us good grounding and taught us how to critically think. We were all university baccalaureate prepared nurses and were very proud of our education. We all entered the Nursing program with only one year of university under our belts whereas now, many of the current nursing students already have a baccalaureate degree in a variety of disciplines. We were also off of school from May until the end of August which is when many of us had the opportunity to work at the hospitals as a practicing nurse. For many of us, working as a nurse was a great experience and definitely helped with adding to our clinical expertise and not to mention a pretty decent summer job! We worked all 3 shifts (days, evenings and nights) which gave us a real taste of what nursing was all about in all times of the day.

Do you know yet what you’re planning on doing for your 40th alumni reunion?
We will likely have a get together at an alumni’s house for our 40th reunion, which is right around the corner in 2015!