EL PASO, Texas (Aug. 17, 2023) – The UTEP College of Nursing celebrated its Summer 2023 graduating class with a momentous Pinning Ceremony Wednesday. This year’s graduating class, the largest in the history of the College’s four-year bachelor’s program, consisted of more than 130 graduates.
The ceremony took place at Magoffin Auditorium on the UTEP campus, where graduates and their families gathered to commemorate their achievement and initiation into the nursing profession.
The Pinning Ceremony marks the completion of a students’ Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. During the ceremony, a close friend or family member of each nurse places a pin on their lab coat before a large audience, symbolizing their successful journey through nursing school.
“The Pinning Ceremony reminds us of the rich traditions of the nursing profession and the immense responsibilities that lay ahead of us as we take our first steps as graduate nurses,” said Leslie Robbins, Ph.D., dean of the UTEP College of Nursing. “It also gives us an opportunity to publicly thank family, friends, and significant others for their love, support, and patience during our journey through nursing school.”
The roots of the Pinning Ceremony can be traced back to the 1860s when Florence Nightingale, a renowned British nurse, statistician and social reformer was honored with the Red Cross of St. George for her exceptional care of the injured during the Crimean War. Inspired by this recognition, Nightingale began awarding a medal of excellence to her most dedicated nursing graduates. By 1916, this practice became a cherished tradition in nursing schools across the United States.
One of the graduates who participated in Wednesday night’s ceremony was Timothy Marquez. The El Paso native and Del Valle High School graduate has accepted a position as a pediatric emergency room nurse at El Paso Children’s Hospital. He chose his parents to pin him as a gesture of his gratitude for their unwavering support.
“They’ve been there for me since day one,” Marquez said. “They’ve always understood that training to be a nurse is difficult and time-consuming. My hope is that, by pinning me, they’ll get to experience this accomplishment with me.”
UTEP is the largest producer of graduates in health care professions among colleges and universities in the Paso del Norte region. With the Summer 2023 Pinning Ceremony, the University continues to shape the future of healthcare in the Borderland and beyond by producing highly skilled and compassionate nurses.
For more information about the UTEP College of Nursing and its programs, please visit www.utep.edu/programs/undergraduate/nursing.html.
About The University of Texas at El Paso
The University of Texas at El Paso is America’s leading Hispanic-serving University. Located at the westernmost tip of Texas, where three states and two countries converge along the Rio Grande, 84% of our 24,000 students are Hispanic, and half are the first in their families to go to college. UTEP offers 169 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs at the only open-access, top-tier research university in America.
