Head. Hand. Heart.

In 1911, one of Mary’s students was struck with appendicitis, which can be life-threatening. Mary took the girl to the only local hospital, which was unwilling to treat African Americans, and persuaded them to treat her. The next day, when Mary returned, she “was taken to the back of the hospital where the young girl was recuperating on a screened porch.” Infuriated, Mary decided to create the first hospital in Daytona Beach for the African American community.  She led fundraising efforts to buy a small building near her school for $5,000: “Most of the first $4,000 was raised by students. The final $1,000 came from steel baron Andrew Carnegie.” The hospital project also came to include a nurses’ training school. Mary named it McLeod Hospital and Nurses Training School in memory of her mother, Patsy McLeod. 

We are grounded in Mary McLeod Bethune’s holistic merger of academics (Head), skills (Hand), and activism (Heart). We honor her desire that faculty strive to be true to the values of the university, maintain a spirit of service, and be comprehensively prepared and effective in our discipline of nursing. Service learning is a vital strategy to prepare students as knowledgeable community leaders. These learning experiences reinforce the values of life-long learning and service.