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Northern Illinois University

NIU Office of Public Affairs


News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

May 11, 2004

NIU School of Nursing mourns
passing of its first faculty member

DeKalb — Ann M. Hart, the first faculty member of the Northern Illinois University School of Nursing and its longtime chair, died Saturday, May 8, in DeKalb. She was 79.

Hart, a school nurse in DeKalb and far-downstate Benton for most of the 1950s, joined the fledgling NIU School of Nursing in 1959. Regarded by some as a visionary with a keen sense of where her profession was heading, she ascended through the school’s ranks and became chair in 1978, a position she held until her retirement in the spring of 1990.

A memorial service will take place later this month or in June.

“She was a great leader of the nursing program and was instrumental in upgrading the program throughout the time she was department chair,” said John E. La Tourette, who retired as NIU’s president four years ago. “She was a wonderful person and very caring, reflecting not only her basic instincts but her professional training as a nurse.”

During her 12 years in the school’s top post, Hart oversaw its move from an on-campus building shared with the biology department (Montgomery Hall) to its own quarters a few blocks north of campus. Hart also worked diligently to attract more nurses to the profession and, in 1980, introduced a program that allowed registered nurses in the Rockford area to earn NIU bachelor’s degrees by taking some courses at Rock Valley College.

In 1968, she was named to a committee of 12 NIU faculty members charged with the task of preparing a 10-year master plan of development that would shape a distinct image of the university and define its unique role in higher education.

“Ann was very committed to the school, no question,” said Marian Frerichs, who served as associate chair alongside Hart. “NIU was her life, and it was through the School of Nursing, but she was very much involved with the entire university and its activities.”

La Tourette, who said he “loved to work with her,” remembers Hart as a “strong advocate for nursing” who also made sure the university took care of her colleagues and students.

“She was a very tough negotiator to guarantee the university provided enough support for the program,” he said. “She made sure when we moved the program to a new location it would have the facilities for a first-class operation. I knew she would do that, and she didn’t disappoint me.”

“When Ann M. Hart talked, the university listened,” echoed Ada Hetland, her longtime secretary and now the school’s administrative secretary. “Everybody said she did not want to move to this building, but that is not true. She wanted to make sure the staff, the faculty and the students had the same services here as we did over there in Montgomery. That’s why she put up the fight. She was an advocate for students, faculty and staff. She was very strong about that.”

Born April 25, 1925, in Orient, Ill., Hart earned a diploma from the St. John’s School of Nursing in 1950. She completed her bachelor’s degree at Southern Illinois University in 1954, her master’s degree at the University of Michigan in 1955 and her Ed.D. at Indiana University in 1962.

She was a member of the National League for Nursing, the American Nurses Association, the American Association of University Professors, Pi Lambda Theta and the National Education Association. She also served on the first editorial board for “The Nursing Spectrum,” which launched publication in January of 1988.

In 1990, as she prepared to retire, she named as her proudest achievement the reputation of NIU’s nursing program across Illinois and gave credit to her faculty colleagues and the hundreds of nursing graduates the school produced.

She also predicted then that the nursing shortage would “get worse rather than better,” resulting in a lack of adequate care for patients and more stress and burnout for nurses. Hart’s prescription: give nurses greater autonomy and decision-making responsibility while reducing their level of workplace stress.

Hetland, hired by Hart in 1975, remembers her “calm” ways, her clear understanding of the intricacies of state budgets and her love of attending operas and ballets in Chicago.

“We always said that Dr. Hart moved like a sailing ship: no waves. She was calm. She was wonderful,” Hetland said. “She had a vision for nursing that was ahead of her time. She anticipated where nursing was going to go in the future – community nursing – and that’s what she pushed for.”

Hetland calls Hart her mentor.

“One of my favorite things about her is how she always said, ‘You cannot turn the clock back. If you make a mistake, correct it and go forward. Don’t dwell on the mistakes,’ ” she said. “I carry that philosophy with me still, not only here, but at home. She was a very dignified lady, in all senses of the word.”

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