66 • UNIV E R S I T Y O F A R K A N S A S - F O R T S M I TH : THE F I R S T 85 Y EAR S
registered nurses in the Fort Smith area.
Students in the St. Edward and Sparks hospitals nursing programs enrolled in science classes at Westark beginning in the early 1960s. Even before the program became a part of the Westark curriculum, the nursing students were always included in the yearbooks as part of the student body.
Community colleges around the country were developing two-year nursing programs as the result of the efforts of Mildred Montag of Columbia University. Her doctoral research focused on the concept of preparing registered nurses in the college setting. In a two-year period, the associate degree nursing programs provided students with a strong educational foundation and prepared students to take the licensure exam to become registered nurses. The cost of the diploma programs at the local hospitals was supported by patient fees. By moving the programs to a public institution, the operating costs would be shared by all taxpayers in the state. In addition, the new ADN program emphasized education, and the students were no longer responsible for providing nursing services to the hospitals.
Carolyn Moore had moved to Fort Smith in 1964 and became the director of the Sparks School of Nursing. Marvin Altman asked her to accept a position at Westark to develop the Associate Degree Nursing program for the college. The new program would be only the second such program in the state of Arkansas. As Moore was one of only a few nurses in the state with a master’s degree in nursing, her qualifications and her willingness to accept the challenge of creating a new program made her a perfect choice to head the nursing program. Shelby Breedlove allowed Moore to spend her first year, which began in 1968, planning the program, developing the curriculum, securing students and faculty, and attaining the necessary legal and professional approval. The first class of 54 students was admitted
in fall 1969. Calline (Dipboye) Ellis and Susan Chaney joined the faculty just prior to the fall semester as the program moved into the Science Building, where the courses were taught during the first three years. The first class of students was composed of recent high school graduates as well as several non-traditional students. Included also were several LPNs and two male students. Acceptance of the nursing program was somewhat slow to develop, both within Fort Smith’s health care community and with the students themselves. Ellis recalled an incident during the first semester: We’d been taking the students to clinical, but we were having our classes in the Science Lecture