Liberty nursing professor was among first class of BSN graduates 30 years ago

Liberty University’s School of Nursing is the largest nursing program in Virginia, but just like the rest of the university as a whole, its early years were characterized by small class sizes and a commitment to Christ-centered education that continues today. In 1991, 32 Liberty students earned the university’s first Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees, and current professor Cindy Drohn has been able to experience both the past and present of the program as a member of that inaugural class and a professor today.

Drohn originally wanted to become a pediatrician and took two years of classes at Olivet College in her home state of Michigan from 1970-72 while working as a nurse aide in the local emergency room. But as she cared for her patients at their bedside, she was inspired to look into nursing schools.

In search of a way to pay for her new classes, Drohn enlisted in the United States Air Force as part of a program that, after one year of military service, would help her get started in nursing school. Unfortunately, she encountered an unexpected issue.

“By the time I had my year of military service, the program ran out of money and I had three years left on my enlistment,” Drohn said. “I kind of just kept going and I re-enlisted.”

Drohn went on to serve nine years in Texas, Washington state, and a year and a half in Spain, working in avionics with aircraft radios and later as a training instructor.

After the military, she had a renewed passion for nursing and began applying to schools in Michigan, but was turned away due to a high number of applicants. Then she came across a new program at Liberty University.

“I found out about Liberty’s program and I wrote them a letter saying, ‘I’m not your traditional student, I’m ex-military, I’m old, and I’m interested in nursing school,’” Drohn said.

Drohn was 38 when she started the program, but she said she uses her experience as “a starting point for talking with people who say they’re too old to start something.”

“I say that there’s no such thing; if God is calling you to something you go in and get it done.”

Beginning in January of 1989, Drohn spent two full years at Liberty to earn her BSN, taking the program’s first accelerated summer courses and working full time as a phlebotomist. Looking back on this time, Drohn said her favorite memories came from the moments spent with her peers both in and out of the classroom: wheelchair races, senior sleepovers with cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and singing “Onward, Christian Soldiers” during her dedication ceremony in the Worley Prayer Chapel. In a clinical, she remembers taking care of a female patient on a ventilator and rejoicing with her as she recovered and was able to be taken off it.

“Many things were fun and full of life, and others were learning what it is to be a nurse,” Drohn said. “(The buildings and campus) are totally different now, but God has supplied all our needs — more abundantly than we could ever ask or think.”

At that time, Liberty’s nursing school offered the BSN and the RN-BSN degrees at the time.

After graduation, Drohn spent a decade working in emergency rooms in Lynchburg, two years in Saudi Arabia, and then settled in Texas to work toward her master’s. She became certified as an emergency nurse practitioner as a result, but her love for bedside nursing and interest in teaching the profession with a Christian perspective brought her back to Liberty in 2002.

“When I thought about teaching, it was something I knew I wanted to do, and I couldn’t imagine teaching anywhere else because of the foundation here,” Drohn said. “You can be a good nurse, but you can’t be a complete nurse if you don’t understand and have a handle on not just the physical and emotional aspects of patient care, but also the spiritual. This was the only place I knew of that incorporates those thoughts and those concepts all the way through the program, right from the beginning.”

Upon returning to campus, Drohn immediately witnessed how much the university and nursing department had grown since she was a student.

“When I graduated, our lab was a single classroom in the old science hall that doesn’t even exist anymore,” she said. “The new space (in DeMoss Hall) had exam rooms, large meeting areas with multiple beds, and it was like a dream. In our main lab we use now, I got the chance to hang up the ophthalmoscopes and otoscopes on the wall and put up posters, and I got the chance to really start the process of making our lab what it was and plant the seeds of what it has since become.”

In her 19 years as a professor, Drohn has taught at all four levels of nursing education, including courses in pathophysiology, medical terminology, and clinicals for multiple specialties.

Drohn received one of the university’s Champion Awards in 2018 for her faith and service (Watch a video about her journey).

Now 30 years after Drohn’s class graduated, Liberty’s nursing school will have a graduating class of around 240 in 2021. The school has greatly expanded its degree offerings with an RN to BSN online degree as well as master’s and doctoral nursing degrees in residential and/or online formats, including the Master of Science in Nursing (MSN), dual degrees MSN & MBA and MSN & MSHA, a Ph.D. in Nursing Education, and a Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) program that has specializations in Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) and Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP).

School of Nursing Dean Shanna Akers said that, with hopes of the COVID-19 pandemic decreasing in the next few months, events to commemorate the 30^th anniversary of the first BSN graduating class are in the works for the fall, which will also coincide with Liberty celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the university’s founding in 1971.