Hilda Boerhave was born in Lynden, WA on March 23, 1917 and graduated from Lynden High School. She married William S. Roberts in 1956. Hilda received her B.S. and a Master of Nursing from the University of Washington and attended Columbia University taking coursework towards a doctorate. She pursued her education and passion for nursing throughout her life with constant studies and efforts to develop the field of professional nursing in Washington. Hilda Roberts served in numerous national, state, and local nursing organizations and worked to expand the field of nursing during its formative years.
Hilda became an assistant professor and director of the School of Nursing at Washington State College (WSC) in 1948. She worked with both the Deaconess and St. Luke’s hospital divisions of the WSC nursing school in the 1940s and 1950s. At WSC and later WSU Hilda Roberts worked in Community College outreach, the College Transfer program, the WSU Extension Program, curricula design, and many other efforts that encouraged the development of the WSU Nursing School and nursing in Eastern Washington. Hilda Roberts also actively participated in numerous local, state, and national nursing organizations that were coming into their own during the postwar period and represent the core of the profession today. These organizations include the American Nurses Association, the National League for Nursing, the Washington State Nurses Association, the Whitman County Nurses Association and the Washington/Alaska Regional Medical Program.
Hilda Roberts worked with other nursing faculty to write the construction, capitation, and development grants that led to the creation of the ICNE in 1968. She served the college as the inaugural Director of the center from 1968-1972 and retired from WSU in 1982. Throughout her tenure she advised, taught, and mentored nursing students and worked tirelessly with other nursing faculty to cultivate the availability of nursing education in Eastern Washington. Mrs. Roberts passed away on September 29, 2011. The WSU College of Nursing carries a Hilda Roberts scholarship in her honor, begun the year of her retirement.
The Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education (ICNE), created in 1968 and located in Spokane, Washington, was initially a consortium of Eastern Washington University, Whitworth College, Ft. George Wright College, and Washington State University (WSU), which coordinated the program. Students choose to enroll in one of the participating institution, at which they complete their lower division study and general education requirements. For their upper division work the students enter the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education, the first nursing consortium in the United States. Located in the medical and geographical center for Eastern Washington, Northern Idaho, Western Montana and border towns of Canada, the Center strives to meet the area's need for programs in nursing, thereby upgrading the practice of nursing in the local communities.
As the first nursing consortium in the U.S., the Center's history and development were accordingly well documented. An area which also consumed the Center's interest involved the method, and theory of nursing education. This issue was resolved in favor of the "holistic" approach to both nursing education and practice.
From the guide to the Intercollegiate Center for Nursing Education Director (Hilda Boerhave Roberts) Papers, 1924-2001, (Washington State University Libraries Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections)
