4 July 2006

Two Big Cheeses Chalk Up their Role in Changing Nursing History

The New Zealand Nurses Organisation Professional Services Manager, Joy Bickley-Asher, paid tribute today to two nurse scholars who made a significant impact on the history of nursing education and research and secured a permanent place in university education for nurse leaders.

Joy Bickley-Asher said Emeritus Professor Norma Chick and Emeritus Professor Nan Kinross should take the credit for the first successful attempt by nurses to gain entry into university halls of learning in Aotearoa/New Zealand. This occurred at Massey University, Palmerston North, when a nursing department was established there in the seventies.

Today marks the launching of their book, in Palmerston North, entitled Chalk and Cheese – Trail blazing in New Zealand nursing: A story told through memoir.

Joy Bickley-Asher said it was typical of the pair to begin their nursing memoir with early nursing memories of milk and treacle enemas, and ward sisters throwing dinner plates.

“More significantly, the decisions they made prior to coming to Massey University marked them out as innovators,” she said.

“Eventually, they made their way to the hospitable psychology department where nursing studies was first established.”

She said nursing education was embedded at Massey University because Massey was willing to have the pair on board, Chick and Kinross were determined, smart, hard-working and resilient and the fact that Massey had an extensive extra-mural programme.

One of their graduates and former colleagues, Professor Irena Madjar, now at the University of Newcastle, Australia, said of Chick and Kinross: “Their legacy is evident in the professional lives of hundreds of nurse clinicians, educators, managers and academics throughout New Zealand and further afield. Those of us who were there as students and later as staff remember the hard work and the excitement. This book is an important part of Massey University history.”

ENDS