Public Health Nursing Program records

The Public Health Nursing program at the University of Minnesota began in 1918 as a four month course offered through the School for Nurses under the direction of Louise Powell. During the 1920-1921 academic year the course extended to eight months and provided a certificate in public health nursing upon completion.

In 1922 the program transferred to the newly created Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health in the Medical School. Anna (Jones) Mariette initially oversaw the program until the appointment of Eula Butzerin in 1924. From 1930 until 1938 the program moved to the College of Education to allow graduates to qualify for teaching certificates. In 1932 Dr. Harold S. Diehl, head of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, successfully lobbied the Graduate School to admit qualified nurses into the program as master’s candidates. In 1938 the program returned to the Department of Preventative Medicine and Public Health with Margaret Arnstein as its new director.

In 1944 the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health was reorganized within the College of Medical Sciences to become the School of Public Health with Public Health Nursing as a major program. Under the leadership of Marion Murphy (1953-1966) the graduate level portion of the program continued to grow. By 1964 the remaining undergraduate students in the program were moved to the School of Nursing and Public Health Nursing remained a graduate program in the School of Public Health.

Alma Sparrow became director of the program in 1967 and oversaw the implementation of the full two-year curriculum for the master’s degree and advocated for the program’s continued relationship with the School of Public Health during the reorganization of the health sciences under the leadership of Vice President Lyle French.

By the early 1980s the program planned for a new curriculum with practitioner options and accreditation by the National League of Nurses Board of Review, however, a retrenchment in funding cut the program’s faculty and necessitated dropping the new curriculum in favor of reducing the graduate degree to a single-year master’s program. Despite the program’s state, the 1988 presidential plan “Commitment to Focus: Academic Priorities, 1988-1993” rejected a task force’s recommendation to discontinue the program and instead proposed a “program jointly operated by the School of Public Health and the School of Nursing since its content spans both disciplines.”

In 1991 the program in Public Health Nursing moved in its entirety to the School of Nursing with LaVohn Josten serving as the director until 2001. Today the School of Nursing offers a Doctor of Nursing Practice in Public Health Nursing.