Nursing Education Alumni Association

The NEAA is the alumni association of the Department of Nursing Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, the first graduate program for nursing in the United States. The program was founded in 1899 with the intent of providing a university for nurses who wished to become superintendents of training schools or of hospitals. It was initially named the "Hospital Economics" program within the Department of Domestic Science; by 1912 this had become the "Department of Nursing and Health" and later, in 1922, the "Department of Nursing Education." The Alumni Association was created to care for alumni and support the school in the days before Social Security, when the school's program was still evolving and its future was uncertain. Once established, it provided scholarships for graduate nursing school, research grants, and small grants to alumni who were sick or indigent.