Class of ’20 celebrated with virtual commencement ceremony
January 13, 2021
The University of Minnesota School of Nursing celebrated the graduation of students at a virtual commencement ceremony Friday, Dec 18, 2020. Joanne Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN, School of Nursing professor ad honorem and American Academy of Nursing Living Legend, delivered the commencement address to graduates.
School of Nursing students in the Master of Nursing, Post-Baccalaureate and Post-Masters Certificate and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs graduated, as well as students in the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing Post-Baccalaureate Certificate and Master of Arts in Integrative Health and Wellbeing Coaching programs.
“For where there was loneliness, suffering, the tolerable pain of cure or the solitary pain of permanent change, there is a need for the kind of human service we call nursing.”
- Joanne Disch, PhD, RN, FAAN
Disch congratulated graduates, noting they are entering or advancing in a profession that will ask much of them and give them much in return. “Nursing puts us in touch with being human. Without even asking, we are invited in to the inner space of other people’s existence,” said Disch. “For where there was loneliness, suffering, the tolerable pain of cure or the solitary pain of permanent change, there is a need for the kind of human service we call nursing.”
Dean Connie White Delaney, PhD, RN, FAAN, FACMI, FNAP, presented the graduates to Regent Kendall Powell, MBA, who conferred the degrees to the graduates.
“We deeply celebrate your accomplishments here at the University and our imaginations are filled with your potential upon graduation,” said Delaney. “You all stand ready to improve health and wellness when we need it the most. You are going to have a profound impact on our profession and on health care because of 2020, not in spite of it.”