1948: School of Nursing forerunner founded
Published on Monday, August 25, 2025
By: Annie Oeth, aoeth@umc.edu
During its 70-year history, the University of Mississippi Medical Center has made contributions to the state, and the world, in medicine, science and education. Each month, we’ll recognize at least one of these major accomplishments.
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The University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Nursing can trace its roots to 1948, the year the Department of Nursing was founded. It is the Medical Center’s second-oldest health sciences school and the first baccalaureate nursing program in the state. The nursing program got its start as part of the School of Medicine in Oxford and moved to UMMC in 1956, a year after the Medical Center opened in Jackson. The Department of Nursing became the School of Nursing in 1958, with Christine Oglevee serving as its first dean.
By 1970, the School of Nursing had added the state’s first graduate nursing program. The Master of Science in Nursing program now offers six tracks of study: Acute Care Adult-Gerontology Nurse Practitioner, Pediatric-Primary/Acute Care, Family Nurse Practitioner, Nurse Educator, Nursing and Health Care Administrator and Psychiatric/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner. Since 1997, it has offered a PhD in nursing and, since 2009, a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree.
The Accelerated BSN track admitted its first students in 2006. Now available in Jackson and Oxford, the ABSN program allows students with four-year degrees in other disciplines to earn a BSN in a year.
In 2014, the school added these programs: the RN-BSN, RN-MSN, BSN-DNP and BSN-PhD. Starting in 2024, the four-year, traditional BSN program has been available in Oxford.
In 2023, UMMC leaders broke ground on a new School of Nursing building, which is expected to be completed in 2026.