Director’s Message

During the second half of our Centenary year, additional events have commemorated our past and looked to our future. These included the inaugural Verna Huffman-Splane Public Health Nursing Lecture and the 51st annual Marion Woodward Lecture. I am also pleased to note at this year’s Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing council meeting in November, whose theme was 100 years of Baccalaureate Nursing Education, our UBC School of Nursing was honoured with CASN’s first Institutional Outstanding Achievement Award, for “outstanding contribution of a CASN Member School that has had an important impact on the advancement of nursing education in Canada and on the profession.”

We have more good news: we are capping a year of historic events with an historic announcement: The UBC Board of Governors has just voted to approve a new building designed to house the School of Nursing and other interprofessional partners, in an especially prominent site on campus! I hope you will take a moment to read the history of our spaces on page 18, and join us as we look toward a future of nursing education, research and practice we will be fully-equipped to meet.

But we are not ready to stop celebrating, either! In fact, we are looking forward to expanding our celebration to all of BC, across Canada, and around the world, with the Nursing Now campaign, which continues throughout 2020, the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife. We helped launch both Nursing Now BC and Nursing Now Canada this year, and we will be involved in a number of activities in the coming year to raise the profile of nurses and midwives.

Elizabeth Saewyc, PhD, RN, FSAHM, FCAHS, FAAN Director and Professor

[Director’s Message 2019 FW]