NDSU Nursing School Hosts Drive Thru Pinning Ceremony

The formal pinning ceremony is still being held in August.

FARGO, N.D.- The pinning ceremony is a unique rite of passage that only graduating nursing students get to experience.

“The pinning ceremony is a long lasting tradition in nursing and it just represents their achievements in completing the program and entering into professional nursing,” says Carla Gross, the Associate Dean at School of Nursing at NDSU.

Because of the Coronavirus, the formal ceremony had to be postponed.

The students did not want to start their professional careers without having a reminder of all the hard work that was made in order to get where they are.

“The students were asking us if they could get their pins. Because their pins are something they wear really proudly, they’re all going to be starting jobs and they wanna wear their NDSU pin as they enter into the profession,” Gross says.

“The idea came from our Bismarck site. They were doing it, and in our faculty meeting we thought, that’s something we could do here in Fargo too,” she adds.

“We really just wanted to push for having some sort of celebration. It was really hard not having a graduation and this ceremony too and so, we tried to find something that we could do in the midst of all of this,” NDSU Nursing Graduate Sterling Sproles says.

NDSU Nursing Graduate Sterling Sproles says COVID-19 has impacted the way she will attend to patients and adds events like this highlight those who will soon be working on the frontlines of the virus.

“Now, I’ll be much more diligent with hand washing and even stressing it on the patients and my other co-workers. Just being so much more appreciative of nurses around me and other staff members at work,” she says.

About 34 nursing students attended the drive thru pinning ceremony.

Those who weren’t able to attend will be receiving a virtual message from faculty and will receive their pins via mail.