Nursing School pays tribute to the past during National Nurses Week

For the UTC School of Nursing, celebrating National Nurses Week means honoring the past.

A group of faculty members visited the Chattanooga National Cemetery Thursday morning to place roses at the grave of Mary B. Jackson, the founder of the UTC School of Nursing.

Mary B. Jackson

Jackson, who passed away in November 2015, founded the school in 1973. She served as director for many years, writing proposals and grants and developing the curriculum that became the foundation of the nursing program. She retired in 1989.

Before coming to UTC, Jackson had a long career of helping others. She previously served in the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps and Army Nurse Corps Reserve. She also was the director of nursing at Erlanger Hospital and an assistant professor at the University of Alabama.

Jackson is buried next to her husband, Dr. Joseph A. Jackson, a former professor and dean of libraries at UTC. The couple were longtime philanthropists.

Together they established the Professor Mary B. Jackson Founders Chair in Nursing, the Mary B. Jackson Professorship, a travel and research fund for the Chair; the Professor Mary B. Jackson Award for Nursing Students and the Dr. Joseph A. Jackson Library Award, bestowed annually upon an outstanding library faculty member.

The nursing faculty also paid tribute to a nurse who is buried close to campus. The faculty laid a wreath at the grave of an unknown nurse at Chattanooga Confederate Cemetery. The grave reads, “A Lady—A Nurse or Hospital Matron.”