Remembering Dr. Brodie.
Barbara Brodie’s (PNP ’75) career was marked by visionary leadership and program innovation, but, first and foremost, she was an exceptional teacher
Brodie was the master weaver—an original web master—who made initial connections between people, remained steadfast in her interest and engagement in them, and maintained a broader network over time.
whose lessons didn’t end at the classroom door. She expected a lot, demanded a lot, and got a lot from her students, and was a woman who pushed in sometimes uncomfortable but ultimately transformative ways.
For many of her former students, she was the one person who most influenced their professional careers and was a respected teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend. And for those who would leave nursing school intending to teach others, Brodie was also a model of how to engage and mentor students.
One of Brodie’s special abilities, generously shared, was making connections and providing opportunities for students, colleagues, and friends. Over the years, dozens of graduates of the master’s and doctoral programs formed a strong network, adding other alumni along the way. Thinking of that network as a web, it was Brodie who was the master weaver—an original web master—who made initial connections between people, remained steadfast in her interest and engagement in them, and maintained a broader network over time. But perhaps Brodie’s greatest gift was to inspire people in such a way that they wanted to stay connected and support her, one another, UVA, and the School of Nursing. She lay at the center of much of their devotion.
More than a half-century ago, Barbara Brodie moved to Charlottesville from her native Chicago, intending to stay only four years. But 32 years later, she retired from the School of Nursing faculty and continued living in Charlottesville. Reflecting on her career, Brodie called her “most rewarding experiences” those she had working with colleagues at the University and School and with students across the spectrum, from undergraduates to those pursuing doctorates.
“I suspect,” Brodie said in a 2002 interview, “that I have taught over a thousand students and watched them become highlight competent and caring professional nurses and leaders in the healthcare system.” Many graduates, she noted, “[became] dear friends and colleagues.”
Brodie was recruited by then Dean Mary Lohr to UVA to develop graduate programs in nursing, which became Virginia’s firsts: the first master’s program in pediatric nursing in 1972 and the first PhD program in nursing in 1982. Begun in UVA School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics and transitioned to the School of Nursing in 1972, the pediatric nurse practitioner (NP) program was, by 1975, joined by several other NP programs, including an adult, family, and emergency NP program, all made possible by an infusion of federal training grants that Brodie wrote and managed. Brodie developed courses, worked with physicians to gain acceptance of NPs, sought out and prepared NP program faculty to teach, and advocated for changes in state regulations with the legislature that would enable and broaden NPs’ scope of practice. Her efforts increased awareness of NPs as providers throughout the state and country, ultimately increasing access to quality primary healthcare in the process.
The vision was to take the Association from a “tea and cookies” group to one with professional standing that would increase outreach and engagement with alumni and begin, in earnest, fundraising. By 1987, as an honorary Alumni Association member and an accidental yet gifted fundraiser, Brodie helped raise money for the School by connecting alumni and friends and motivating them to remain involved.
By 1985, more than a dozen years into her tenure at UVA, Brodie had become an associate dean, an advisor to the School’s Alumni Association, and closely involved in hiring a then-part-time executive director. The vision was to take the Association from a “tea and cookies” group to one with professional standing that would increase outreach and engagement with alumni and begin, in earnest, fundraising. By 1987, as an honorary Alumni Association member and an accidental yet gifted fundraiser, Brodie helped raise money for the School by connecting alumni and friends and motivating them to remain involved.
Thanks to a generous alumna, Brodie’s first fundraising honor was the establishment of the eponymous Barbara Brodie Scholars Endowment Fund, created to support nursing master’s and doctoral students and likely the first endowment at UVA named in honor of a living female faculty member. Between the fund’s establishment in 1988 and 2022, when it was valued at more than $832,000, more than $545,000 in scholarships had been awarded to 62 Brodie scholars.
Said Brodie, “It is a humbling experience when graduates come back and say, ‘We’d like to name something after you because you’ve made such a difference in our lives.’”
$545,000
BY 2022, MORE THAN A HALF-MILLION HAD BEEN DISTRIBUTED TO 62 BRODIE SCHOLARS
By 1991, Brodie established the Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry with Arlene Keeling (BSN ’74, MSN ’87, PhD ’92) and Sylvia Rinker (PhD ’95) and served as its first director. Over the years, she helped secure important acquisitions into its archives: papers from the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Associates and Practitioners, the Nancy Milio Collection of notebooks, photos, and ledgers from the Detroit-based Mom and Tots Clinic, and many others.
Today, the Center’s endowment has reached $2.8 million, thanks to a $1.2 million gift from Eleanor Crowder Bjoring in 2012, a long-time University of Texas nursing professor and lover of history, after whom the Center is now named. It is one of just three endowed nursing history centers in the United States.
Donate to the Barbara M. Brodie Endowed Faculty Fund in Nursing History
Established in 2015, this esteemed, to-be-created faculty position will be one of the nation’s first endowed professorships in nursing history when fully funded.
Brodie, named an American Academy of Nursing Fellow in 1990 and designated one of its “Living Legends” in 2009, earned accolades across the expanse of her lengthy career: from her alma mater Loyola she received the School of Nursing Alumni Association’s Outstanding Nurse Educator Award in 1985 and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters in 1993; the Virginia Nurses Association named her among the 99 Outstanding Nurses (1999) and a Centennial Nurse Pioneer (2000); Brodie was named one of UVA Alumni Association’s ten all-time favorite professors for her roles as “teacher, mentor, scholar, and academic statesperson” in 1997 and among its list of “Ten Excellent Teachers” in 2001; she earned UVA Alumni Association’s Distinguished Professor Award in 2002, and received an Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education in Virginia (2003).
Brodie retired from UVA in 2002 after 32 years of teaching and mentoring thousands of students. Still, she continued writing, mentoring, connecting, networking, and championing nurses and nursing history until her death on February 9, 2023.
Clearly, she was exceptional. She will be deeply missed.
With sincere thanks to Friends of Brodie (FOB), who together conceived of, researched, and wrote this piece, including:
- Barbee Bancroft (PNP ’76, MSN ’78)
- Patricia Booth Woodard (BSN ’69)
- Patricia Cloonan (PhD ’89)
- Linda Richter Davies (BSN ’70, ENP ’76, MSN ’82)
- Pauline Dessertine (PNP ’73, MSN ’74)
- Barbara Dunn (PNP ’73, MSN ’74)
- Denise Geolot Sherer (BSN ’70, ENP ’75)
- Annette Gibbs, UVA School of Education professor emerita
- Linda Compton Hodges (BSN ’71)
- Arlene Keeling (BSN ’74, MSN ’87, PhD ’92)
- Yu-Shen Lin (PhD ’98)
- Sarah Nicholson (PNP ’74, MSN ’77)
- JoAnne Peach (ANP ’76, FNP ’77)
- Rita Pickler (PhD ’90)
- Sylvia Rinker (PhD ’95)
- and Paula Zeanah (PNP ’75, MSN ’79)