Our national reputation for clinical excellence helps make our graduates highly sought after by top health care employers around the country.
Whether you graduate as a new nurse or are advancing your current practice with a doctorate, a degree from Rush prepares you to be a leader in the nursing profession.
Our mission
The mission of Rush University College of Nursing is to integrate nursing practice, scholarship, and education throughout the diverse communities we serve and to boldly lead health care transformation to ensure health equity across the continuum of care.
Our vision
Our vision is to lead nursing practice scholarship while driving health equity.
Our guiding principles
- We strive to be an antiracist and multicultural institution. We aspire to achieve equity and social justice for all members of the College and for those we serve.
- We value all members of the College and expect them to demonstrate integrity, transparency, moral courage, and respect for others.
- We value teamwork and we value the diverse backgrounds of our faculty, student body, and staff who contribute their expertise and talents to the collective excellence of the College.
- We value ongoing professional development informed by self-reflection and believe in learning through one’s personal journey, adapting to change, seeking opportunities for growth, and learning from successes as well as challenges while prioritizing work-life balance.
- We value success through continual professional growth by fostering collaborative successes that will lead to local, national, and international recognition for the College and its individual members.
- We value the legacy of the Rush tradition of nursing that uniquely integrates practice, education, scholarship, research, and service. We are committed to outcome-oriented and evidence-based education.
- We strive to continuously demonstrate excellence in clinical practice, research, education, scholarship, leadership, advocacy, and academic-practice partnerships.
- We are dedicated to innovation that emphasizes collaborative partnerships with all College stakeholders to generate creative solutions to the issues impacting our world, including health disparities.
- The College is built on respect for all and values all voices through shared governance. Our collaboration is based on accountability, mentorship, responsiveness to the needs of the communities we serve, and a climate that aspires toward unity and a just culture.
Our history
The College of Nursing's heritage dates back to 1885, when our first antecedent, the St. Luke's Hospital Training School of Nursing, opened to offer diploma education to nurses. In 1903, the Presbyterian Hospital School of Nursing accepted its first students. From 1956 to 1968, nurses were taught at the merged Presbyterian-St. Luke's School of Nursing. Before the establishment of the College of Nursing in 1972, more than 7,000 nurses had graduated from these schools.
The first bachelor's and master's degrees were awarded in 1975, the first doctor of nursing science degree was awarded in 1980 and the first practice doctorate was awarded in 1990.
Legacy of Luther Christman
The first College of Nursing dean was Luther Christman, PhD, RN, FAAN. Christman rose to great prominence in American nursing as both a forward-thinking and controversial figure. The son of a coal miner, Christman became vice president of nursing affairs and the dean of the College of Nursing at Rush University in 1972.
Christman's educational background in psychology served him well as an administrator. He became the first male to hold the joint appointments of dean of nursing and hospital director of nursing. Christman developed the Rush Model of Nursing, which gained him an international reputation as a nursing leader. As an educational maverick, Christman advocated in the 1980s for entry-level nurses to have doctoral degrees.
Christman had many other career highlights, including the following:
- Dean, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
- Founder, American Association for Men in Nursing (the American Assembly for Men in Nursing)
- Founder, National Student Nurses Association
- Fellow and Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing
Christman passed away on June 7, 2011, leaving a legacy that still lives on at Rush and the entire nursing community. Rush University College of Nursing is extremely proud to have Christman represent the important contribution of men in the nursing profession.
The College of Nursing today
Today, well over 7,000 baccalaureate, master's and doctoral students have graduated from Rush University College of Nursing.
We are home to an nationally and internationally recognized team of faculty.
Current nursing programs are offered from the master's through the doctoral (DNP and PhD) levels. The last baccalaureate class graduated in June 2009. The generalist entry master's (GEM) is the prelicensure program for entry into RN practice. Students are automatically members of the Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Nurses Alumni Association upon graduation.
