Award: Bronze

Institution: University of Maryland Baltimore

Title of Entry: UMSON's National Nurses Week 2020

About this Entry: As we approached the end of the spring 2020 semester, it was clear that gathering in person to do any sort of celebrating was out of the question, so we quickly pivoted to adapt our annual National Nurses Week commemoration, May 6 - 12, of traditionally in-person activities into online and social media initiatives.

We proudly honored our May graduates, along with all nurses, during our exclusively digital National Nurses Week celebration, marking the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birth and the International Year of the Nurse, as designated by the World Health Organization long before the same organization designated COVID-19 a pandemic. Our celebration of National Nurses Week and the International Year of the Nurse aimed to honor the pivotal role that nurses play in providing evidence-based, empathetic health care in Maryland, nationwide, and around the globe. It took on particular significance this year, as nurses entered the spotlight as front-line providers during the COVID-19 pandemic. We wanted to adequately and appropriately commemorate the week and celebrate nurses’ contributions during these most challenging times.

We utilized digital versions of the event branding we had developed earlier in the semester when we were planning for in-person events, and we invented new, fully virtual ways to celebrate our longstanding traditions, such as our Scrub Top Decorating Contest and Pi event (sponsored by UMSON’s Pi Chapter of Sigma international honor society). Our entire community — students, faculty, staff, alumni, and practice/education partners — were invited to participate.