Shades of Gray
The White Coat Ceremony is one of my favorites.
It’s the first ceremony for future nurses in the MSN (Entry Into Nursing) program; students invite their friends and families, and the air is brimming with inspiration. It’s so very Johns Hopkins-- reaffirming all the ideals we try to live up to, that everyone begins with the intent to care and help people in every walk of life the world over.
This is the Year of the Nurse and Midwife, in addition to COVID-19, so we were very disappointed to not be able to celebrate together. But the event was converted into an online event taking place on Zoom (fulfilled thanks to our Student Affairs Director, Events Director, and IT people). Students also received their sponsored White Coat with a message in the pocket from their donor; the Alumni and Development office coordinates a drive every year.
I reached out to the incoming students (over 177 of them in the midst of a pandemic!) for them to send in photos of themselves in the white coats to use on social media throughout the event. I received over 70 of them, which is pretty good for a user-generated content campaign). I sent the photos on social media, on twitter matching the pledge they take, and uploaded the entire album to Flickr. They have been a great recruitment tool, I’ve been able to reuse them for our open houses. They are particularly handy since we have so few photos from this year.