Elinor B. Caddell oral history interview, 2017 August 23

Description

Charlotte native, Elinor Caddell, one of the founding faculty members of the UNC Charlotte School of Nursing, recalls her career in nursing education and how the profession has evolved over the years. Ms. Caddell recalls entering the newly created Charlotte Memorial School of Nursing in 1941 as a seventeen year-old student and how World War II influenced many people to enter the field of nursing. After graduating, she studied to get a B.S. in Nursing Education at Duke University, where she worked closely with Mrs. Edith Brocker who later became UNC Charlotte School of Nursing's first dean. Upon completion of the baccalaureate program, Ms. Caddell returned to Charlotte Memorial School of Nursing to teach, and later joined Mrs. Brocker to spearhead the nursing program at UNC Charlotte in 1965. Ms. Caddell recalls how she recruited registered nurses to become enrolled in the baccalaureate nursing program and how she developed an outreach program that allowed UNC Charlotte students to receive additional nursing education at UNC Chapel Hill. Ms. Caddell also developed the masters degree in nursing at UNC Charlotte, where she taught until 1989. Ms. Caddell concludes by reflecting on how she misses being an educator and how proud she is of her former students.