Frances Payne Bolton
School of Nursing
Over 75 years of History
Throughout
its history, the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing has earned a reputation as an
innovator in nursing education. This was not by accident. One of the key conditions of
Frances Bolton's generous endowment of a university school of nursing over 75 years ago
was that it should take an experimental approach to nursing education. Bolton said that
even though there might be no assurance that a particular experiment would succeed, the
school should be "free at all times in the future to engage in other experiments, to
cooperate with hospitals in these efforts," and she hoped the endowment would
contribute to paying for these experiments.1
Experimentation is one of the
hallmarks and central themes of the Bolton School's history. Indeed, the new university
school was itself an experiment that became permanent after a five-year trial. In 1928,
Dean Nellie X. Hawkinson wrote: "This year marks the close of our 5 year experimental
period-a period in which we have tried to set up an educational program which would meet
the standards of university education and which would also include the highest ideals of
the nursing profession.2
The experimental approach to
nursing practice and education has allowed the Bolton School to contribute to and draw
upon a growing body of nursing knowledge, while promoting some of the most daring
experiments in clinical teaching. Until the 1960s, nursing educators felt that instruction
needed to be better integrated with practice.' In response to this problem, Dean Rozella
Schlotfeldt's innovative "Experiment in Nursing" created a collaborative model
for nursing education that enhanced the national prominence of the school.
This spirit of collaboration
remained a hallmark of the Bolton School throughout the 1990s. With a renewed emphasis on
educational innovation and global leadership during the Joyce Fitzpatrick years, the
school established and strengthened relationships with local and national institutions
such as the World Health Organization and University Hospitals of Cleveland. With this
emphasis, Fitzpatrick improved the reputation of the school. Dorothy Brooten, Dean for the
21st Century, brings her own strong vision for the future, based first and foremost on
maintaining academic excellence and on positioning the school as a world leader in
research to improve nursing practice and the delivery of care. Throughout 75 years of
shaping nursing knowledge and practice through experimentation and innovative
collaboration, the Bolton School represents both a historical example and a future model
for nursing education.
1 Letter from
Frances Payne Bolton to Western Reserve University president, Robert E. Vinson, 8 March
1929, Western Reserve Historical Society (hereafter
WRHS), Ms. 3943, box 93, folder 1630.
2 Nellie X. Hawkinson, School of Nursing Annual Report, Western Reserve
University, 1927-8, Case Western Reserve University (hereafter CWRU) Archives, Rg.
29, Series
29A, Box 2
3. Margen O. Faddis, A School of Nursing Comes of Age (Cleveland: The
Alumni Association of The Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing, 1973)
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