Celebrating 100 Years

A legacy of compassion and innovation

As the Rankin School of Nursing celebrates its centenary in 2026, Marion Alex, a 1978 nursing graduate who served on the School of Nursing faculty from 1988 to 2024, reflects on its 100-year legacy.

In the 1920s, there were no cancer chemotherapies, no dialysis machines, no defibrillators, cardiac pacemakers or ventilators. There were few automobiles, and electricity was available to a limited number of households. Certainly, no computers. 

But the 1920s also saw the discovery of penicillin, of insulin, and the first vaccines for pertussis and tuberculosis.

French Canadian nursing sisters like Marguerite d’Youville had established nursing orders like the Grey Nuns, who trekked westward bringing public health and hospital care to Quebec and western Canada. In England, Queen Victoria had already established the Victoria Order of Nursing. These were emerging social changes, including the right for women to vote. 

But Nova Scotia in the 1920s and 1930s were times of harsh economic conditions, including those that led to high rates of maternal and child mortality and high rates of infectious and chronic disease. The determinants of health and illness were clear even then to those who provided care to the sick, to the very young, and the elderly.

Here in Antigonish, as Father Moses Coady and Father Jimmy Tompkins were establishing the Antigonish Movement, the Sisters of Saint Martha, who had already founded St. Martha Hospital in 1906, and the Sisters of St. Martha School of Nursing, took another step, establishing the StFX School of Nursing in 1926. The need for nursing education based on an ethic of compassionate care and grounded in science and knowledge was entirely clear to them. That same call to action remains today.

From 1926 to 1966, the StFX Nursing program involved a five-year program that included three years to complete the diploma program at St. Martha’s School of Nursing, and two years of arts, science, and courses that would prepare nurses for a specialty such as education or public health. The first nurse to graduate from this program did so in 1933.

Since 1966, the StFX School of Nursing has involved an integrated four-year program for qualified high school graduates. Courses were offered at StFX with practice at St. Martha’s Hospital and in community health nursing. Nursing courses were supported by courses in philosophy/ethics, chemistry, biology, psychology and education.

Student enrollment and graduation rates have mushroomed since then. For example, in the 1970s, at the most, 20 students graduated annually. By the 2000s, this number ballooned to over 100 annually.

Since 2000, the program also expanded to include accelerated programs for students who enter with completed prerequisite courses such as in science, ethics, and statistics, some of whom have completed degrees in other fields; and a part-time program, much by distance, for Licensed Practical Nurses who wish to also complete a university nursing program.  

Renamed the Elizabeth and Thomas Rankin School of Nursing in 2016 in honour of Elizabeth and Thomas Rankin, the school today is a bustling hub of teaching, learning and scholarship, and professional nursing involving hundreds of nursing students. Practica are based on partnerships across Canada and beyond. Its roots date back a century to the pioneering work of the Sisters of Saint Martha. We are forever grateful to them.

As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Rankin School of Nursing at St. Francis Xavier University, let us remember our strong partnership with the Sisters of Saint Martha and all those who helped make the StFX School of Nursing an excellent and sought-after place of higher education that has proudly grown over a century.