Nine women currently working as Licensed Practical Nurses were celebrated Thursday, December 15, for completing the Associate Degree of Nursing with a pinning ceremony. The graduates also are invited to walk in the College Commencement Ceremony in May, 2023.
The Danville Area Community College Nurse Pinning Ceremony concluded a four-semester part-time program designed for working LPNs. This group started their program in Fall 2021 and continued coursework through summer to complete in December 2022. The graduates are now eligible to sit for the NCLEX-RN to become Registered Nurses.
Professor Shannon Childers was the guest speaker with the Class Response presented by LaTosha Grayned. Family and friends were treated to refreshments at the conclusion of the ceremony.
While their diplomas will signify the degree they have earned, Nursing Professor Erica Johnson shared the significance of the pinning ceremony. “The history of this rite of passage can be traced all the way back to the Crusades of the 12 th century. During this time, the Knights of the Order of the Hospital of St. John the Baptist tended to injured and infirmed Crusaders. When new monks were initiated into the order…they were given a Maltese cross,” She continued, “In the 1860’s, Florence Nightingale, known as the Lady of the Lamp, was awarded the Red Cross of St. George…Florence Nightingale awarded medals to her hardest working nursing graduates to acknowledge a job well done.”
The current nursing pin features a lamp, and the ceremony includes a lamp-lighting ceremony while the new nurses recite the Nightingale Pledge. When the pinning ceremony was initiated in the 1860s, the lamp symbolized of the care and devotion nurses administer to the sick and injured in the practice of nursing. The candle lighting and extinguishing of the flame also symbolizes the transfer of knowledge from the faculty to the newly graduated nurse.
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