Dr. Shirley Toney has brought a labor of love, regarding the history of the Gardner-Webb University’s School of Nursing, to the pages of a book entitled Gardner-Webb University School of Nursing - History & Heritage. Toney is Dean Emerita and Professor Emerita for the Gardner-Webb School of Nursing. She concluded 45 years in formal nursing education, primarily at GWU in June 2008. Toney helped bring to life the nursing program in 1965 and served as a nursing education administrator and was the chairman of the program from 1978-1995. She later became the first Dean of the School of Nursing (1995-2006) when the program earned Deanship status in 1995. "Because I helped start the program and worked in it for so many years, I have lived the whole thing. It was my life," said Toney. As Toney started recapping what she refers to as "a remarkable story" and started getting material ready for the book something crossed her mind. "This is not just history, this is heritage," said Toney. Thus came the perfect title for the book.
GWU School of Nursing - History & Heritage is dedicated to Grace Craig Lee, who passed away in 2000. Toney shares in the book that Lee along with Cleveland Memorial Hospital, Shelby, N.C. (today known as Cleveland Regional Medical Center) and Rutherford Hospital were instrumental in the start of the school. Lee, a native of Belmont, N.C. was the first director of the GWU Department of Nursing (1965-78). Lee graduated from the Rutherford Hospital School of Nursing (no longer in existence) in 1933. The book also refers to numerous individuals who helped form the school and participated in it.
Toney says that one of her greatest joys was how the School of Nursing has evolved over the years. In the beginning, the school offered a two-year associate in arts degree with a few dozen students. Since that time, thousands of nursing students have come through the program taking advantage of numerous degree options. Toney said, “To be a school that became an intricate part of the University with a professional faculty that provided students with quality education was rewarding.”
Provost and Senior Vice-President at Gardner-Webb, Dr. Ben Leslie calls Toney "One of the University's most celebrated educators" and is proud of what GWU School of Nursing - History & Heritage offers. "Dr. Toney’s work is as much a tribute as a service to an educational undertaking that has shaped the healthcare communities of Western North Carolina and beyond," said Leslie. Toney says with pride, “We've put so many students out in the world and they are doing marvelous things."
GWU School of Nursing - History & Heritage is currently available at the gift shops of Cleveland Regional Medical Center and Rutherford Hospital and the GWU Campus Shop (where books can also be ordered). More information is available from the GWU Campus Shop at 704-406-4273.
