Using Nursing’s Past to Secure its Future

"Many of us have been part other the Center since its founding, and are committed to making it a permanent part of the School and University." That was the inspiration that lead Ellen Baer, emeritus professor and honorary Penn Nursing Alumna and Henry Baer, a member of the School of Nursing’s Board of Overseers, to challenge the Advisory Board of the Center for the Study of the History of Nursing and some of its closest supporters to give more to the Center.

"I believe in nursing and the contribution it makes to patients and their health care. I have always been puzzled by why society does not accord more credit to nursing for the work it does. In my own research I became convinced that nursing’s invisibility is the main reason for society’s lack of acknowledgment. As Joan Lynaugh has said: History is a method for making the invisible visible. The Center is a mechanism to make nursing visible, and I have tried to support the Center financially as well as verbally for that reason. Fortunately my husband Hank has been an enthusiastic partner in this mission," comments Dr. Baer.

The Baers created a challenge grant which asked the Center’s Advisory Board and major supporters to match the Baer’s contribution in hopes of attaining the million dollar mark endowment for the Center. In addition to an outright gift, in 1997 the Baers created a charitable trust that preserves assets for the Center while giving quarterly income to the Baers for their lifetimes.

"They gave committed something to the future while securing the present," states Karen Buhler-Wilkerson, Center Director. "Ellen and Hank’s generosity and our dedicated board and friends who responded to their challenge will help ensure that history can provide insight, wisdom, and a voice for today’s and tomorrow’s nurses and their patients."

Many, many thanks to the Baers for making this possible! The Center is also very grateful to Hannah and Welles Henderson and the Alumni Association of the Philadelphia General Hospital School of Nursing for their exceptionally generous gifts.