Who was the first nursing professor in history, arriving at Teachers College in 1907?

• A. Lillian Wald
• B. Mary Adelaide Nutting
• C. Isabel Hampton Robb
• D. Lavinia Dock

Answer: (B)

Pioneering the academic status of nursing is what this item highlights. Mary Adelaide Nutting is recognized as the first nurse to hold a professorship, arriving at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1907. Her appointment marked a turning point where nursing education began to be housed in a university setting, not just hospital diploma programs. Nutting worked to create formal, standardized curricula and to advance nursing as an intellectual discipline with room for research and higher degrees. This move helped elevate the profession and set a model for university-based nursing programs that followed.

Other notable nursing pioneers contributed in crucial ways—Lillian Wald advanced public health nursing and the settlement-house movement; Isabel Hampton Robb led efforts to raise standards and licensure; Lavinia Dock campaigned for education reform and nursing rights—but none held the first university professorship in nursing at Teachers College in 1907.