Several readers have written in to provide us with more information in response to a news story published in the Summer 2003 issue of Minority Nurse that incorrectly identified the BSN program at Tuskegee University as the nation’s first baccalaureate nursing program offered at a Historically Black College or University (HBCU). That distinction actually belongs to Dillard University in New Orleans, whose BSN program was started in 1940. Its first students were admitted in 1943 and graduated from the five-year program in 1948. Tuskegee’s BSN program, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, was established in 1948 and graduated its first class in 1953.
MN would especially like to thank readers Wilmoth L. Williams, RN, MS, and Stella Pecot Robinson, RN, PhD--both proud graduates of the Dillard BSN Class of ‘48--for helping to set the record straight about this important milestone in the history of nursing education.