BLOG: College of Nursing Dean on Passing of College's Founding Dean

Following is a blog from University of Kentucky College of Nursing Dean Janie Heath

Sept. 5, 2014

Dear Friends of the UK College of Nursing,

“A dream shared by many!” During the college’s 40th Anniversary celebration, this is what an excited Dr. Marcia A. Dake, the College of Nursing’s founding dean, recalled about the opening of the College. Indeed, the College has been a dream shared by many faculty, staff, students, deans, alumni and friends over the past 56 years. So it is with a deep sense of pride but also sadness that I write of Dr. Dake’s passing.

Her love of nursing began in high school where she assisted the high school nurse. Her education would follow the traditional nurse training path with a hospital diploma, after which she then entered the Army Nurse Corp in WWII.  After the war, she completed her bachelor’s degree in public health nursing from Syracuse University and her master’s in education from Teacher’s College.  A National League of Nurses fellowship allowed her to earn a PhD in education at Teacher’s College.

 Dr. Carolyn Williams, dean emeritus of the College of Nursing, commented on Dr. Dake’s legacy. “Dr. Marcia Dake, nurse, educator and leader was a remarkable woman. She not only was the first dean of the College of Nursing (and the youngest dean of a nursing school at that time), she actually ‘built the college from scratch,’ hired the first faculty members, worked with them on designing the curriculum, and led them in planning for the first class of students, which began the nursing program in 1960.”

Those early years were a challenge for the dean in recruiting appropriately prepared faculty and developing a baccalaureate program in nursing which would be very different from traditional hospital diploma programs. The work paid off when the College earned its first accreditation in May 1965, which Dr. Dake said was indeed “a day of celebration.” By 1970, she and the faculty had earned approval for graduate education and welcomed the first class of master’s students.

In 1972, Dr. Dake left the University to become director of education for the American Nurses Association. Her nursing career later took her to a position at the American Red Cross and then she ended it by going full circle with another appointment as a founding dean of nursing at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va.

To honor Dr. Dake’s numerous contributions to our College and to the profession of nursing, the College’s first endowed professorship, made possible by the generosity of Linda and Jack Gill, was named in her honor.

Since her passing, I have been most fortunate to have had a number of fascinating conversations about Dr. Dake with faculty, alumni and staff in which they shared some of their recollections of the College’s first days as well as her absolute delight in the growth of the College’s programs and her faith in and commitment to its future.

Indeed, Dr. Dake was an amazing woman who was able to take that “dream shared by many” and forge it into reality - a reality that we continue to grow and strengthen today. We will be forever grateful for her leadership.

Janie Heath

Dean and Warwick Professor of Nursing

University of Kentucky College of Nursing

jheath@uky.edu