Mainly Lulu K. Hassenplug; some materials added by the UCLA School of Nursing. 1903-1995

Biography

Lulu Wolf Hassenplug (1903-1995), R.N., B.S., M.P.H., Sc.D., was a pioneer and leader in the modern education of nurses, changing the concept of student nurse to that of nursing student and putting nursing on the road to professionalism. As founding dean of the UCLA School of Nursing (1948-1968), Mrs. Hassenplug created at that school the laboratory for her educational innovations. She sent out broadly educated undergraduates who took over nursing supervision in major hospitals, and expert graduate students who were sought for faculty positions in other university nursing programs. Through her vigorous speaking and publication schedule, she energized and encouraged her far-flung troops.

Hassenplug's major innovation was to move nursing education away from the control of hospitals, who tended to look upon student nurses as cheap hired help and too often subjugated educational needs to labor needs. She envisioned nurses broadly educated in a university setting similar to other professionals, with the hospital ward serving as their educational laboratory. At UCLA she attained the goal of nursing students having the same status as others on campus, i.e., students no longer had to live in special dormitories with restrictive rules, no longer had to wear white caps and stockings, and no longer had to rise when a physician entered the classroom. Hassenplug also took her ideas for curriculum changes on the road, serving many years on education committees for the National League for Nursing and for the Western Council on Higher Education for Nursing, which she helped found.

Hassenplug (then Lulu K. Wolf) graduated with honors in 1924 from the Army School of Nursing, Walter Reed Hospital. After a position as Instructor in Nursing, Piedmont Hospital School of Nursing, Atlanta, GA, she earned a bachelor of science degree from Columbia University Teachers' College in 1927 and then became Education Director and Assistant Principal of the School of Nursing, Jewish Hospital, Philadelphia, PA. In 1930 she moved to the Medical College of Virginia, as Assistant and later Associate Professor of Nursing. Desiring to broaden her understanding of nursing education, Mrs. Hassenplug applied for and won (only the second American to do so) a Florence Nightingale Foundation International Fellowship for a year's study at Bedford College for Women, University of London, England. She packed an impressive amount of learning, exploration and fun into that year (1936-37), as demonstrated in these papers by her speeches, interviews, mementos, and photographs. During vacation periods she devised her own tours to study hospitals and nursing education in the British Isles, the Scandinavian countries, Hungary, Germany, and France.

A year after her return Mrs. Hassenplug moved from Virginia to the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing, where she became Associate and then full Professor of Nursing. During a year off she earned a Master's of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health, on a Rockefeller Fellowship. In 1948 she came to head the nursing program at UCLA, and in 1949 the department became a new professional school and Mrs. Hassenplug was named Dean. She occupied that position for twenty years, retiring in 1968. Dean Hassenplug was widely honored and acknowledged for her massive achievements, within and outside this university, within and beyond the nursing profession. She received two honorary doctorates, the Alpha Tau Delta Gold Key, the Mary Adelaide Nutting Award, and the Jessie M. Scott Award, among many other awards.

From the guide to the Lulu K. Wolf Hassenplug Papers, 1863-1995, (University of California, Los Angeles. Library. Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library History and Special Collections Division)