• WHAT: Pinning ceremony for graduating nurses
• WHO: 34 graduates of the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing
• WHEN: 6 p.m., Friday, May 7
• WHERE: Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall, Fine Arts Building, UA Campus

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Nurses graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing will receive their nursing pins in a candlelight ceremony on the evening before university commencement. Fifteen members of this year’s graduating class have already accepted employment at hospitals in Northwest Arkansas.

Glenda Lawson will deliver welcoming remarks entitled "At the Crossroads: Making the Right Choices." An associate professor of nursing in the Mann School, she teaches geriatrics and research methods. She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and her doctorate from Texas Women’s University. She is the first certified vascular nurse in the state of Arkansas, and her research focuses on vascular disease.

Following the welcome, nursing students Joanne Tynon and Jessica Fowler will address the graduating nurses. The program will culminate in the pinning of the new nurses, and several students will be pinned by family members who are also nurses.

This year’s class includes two male nurses, one of whom, Luke Mueller, will be commissioned a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. The Navy commissioning ceremony will be held during the Mann School’s pinning ceremony.

Reporters interested in interviewing individual graduating nurses are welcome to attend a short rehearsal for the ceremony at 12:30 p.m., on Friday, May 7, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall.