The nurse-to-be twirled in her scrubs, gesturing at her jewelry and kicking her feet.
“So tell me, how is she looking?” Ashley Goar, director of clinical education for Linfield University-Good School of Nursing, asked the auditorium full of students.
“Her earrings!” someone shouted from the back, and Goar smiled and nodded.
“Yep! She’s wearing hoops, and when we have someone with delirium or dementia, that’s not a good thing,” Goar said, laughing.
The fashion show of scrub-dos and scrub-don’ts was part of Friday’s traditional Bachelor of Science in Nursing orientation. The day also included tabling from various student and professional organizations, an official welcome from Dean Paul Smith, a campus tour, the acorn ceremony and the now-traditional catered lunch from Baba’s Mediterranean.
The Spring 2024 cohort is large and diverse — the median age is 25, with students hailing from Oregon, Washington, California and Hawaii. Eighteen of the students joined the school from the McMinnville campus, while 29 others transferred into Linfield.
“Today, you are going to feel like you are drinking from a fire hose — just embrace it,” Smith said during his opening remarks. “You can all do it together — look around and make a commitment to each other that you will all be together as a cohort through December of 2025.”
It is those connections, he said, that will carry them through the rigorous academic challenges the next 22 months.
“As of right now, there’s no more competition — just work together as a cohort, make lifelong friends and enjoy the ride,” he said, smiling.
