Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing records

Today’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing at Emory University originated in 1905 as the Wesley Memorial Hospital and Training School for Nursing. The 50-bed hospital and training school was located in the Calico House, an antebellum mansion located at the corner of Courtland Street and Auburn Avenue, one block from Wesley Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The first class of 10 students graduated in 1907.

In 1922 the hospital and training school moved to a new hospital building on the Emory University campus in the Druid Hills section of Atlanta. During the 1920s, the U.S. government selected the school as one of only eight schools in the country to lead in the development of university-based education in nursing. The hospital and nursing school were renamed Emory University Hospital and Emory University Hospital School of Nursing in 1932.

In 1944 the school separated from the hospital to become an independent school of the university, changing its name to Emory University School of Nursing. At this time the school began to offer a baccalaureate degree program leading to a bachelor of science in nursing degree. In 1954 a graduate program leading to the master of nursing degree was initiated. It was the first of its kind in the southeastern United States. In 1963 Verdelle Bellamy and Allie Saxon entered the graduate program as the first African American students at the university.

Another name change occurred in 1967 when the Emory University Board of Trustees renamed the school in honor of Nell Hodgson Woodruff, a long-time supporter of the school and wife of Emory philanthropist Robert W. Woodruff. She attended the 1968 groundbreaking for the new School of Nursing building on Asbury Circle, but did not live to see it completed. The school moved into a new facility in 2001, located adjacent to the Rollins School of Public Health on Clifton Road.

The school celebrated its Centennial in 2005. Its stated mission is to educate nurse leaders and scholars, generate new knowledge, and improve health and health care, all in service to the global community.