"Drive Thru" RN Pinning Ceremony Saturday, May 23
The traditional pinning ceremony for the Fresno City College registered nursing graduates will look much different this year due to the COVID-19 crisis. Instead of standing on a stage for the ceremony, the 111 graduates will stay in their cars for a "drive thru" pinning ceremony.
On Saturday May 23, 2020 at 10 a.m., students will line up in their cars and one by one they will drive by a contingency of FCC nursing faculty and administrators to go through the traditional pinning ceremony.
The pinning of each nursing graduate from their cars will take place in front of the Health Science Building on Glenn Avenue. To get there student vehicles will begin lining up in parking lots D and E on the south side of campus (McKinley side) and lot C if necessary. Vehicles will start lining up at 9:45 a.m. Volunteers will direct vehicles to slowly proceed north through the campus traveling under the train overpass to the east side of the campus, following the road onto Calaveras Avenue. They will then turn left towards the Health Science building and then right to where the ceremony is taking place.
There, they will encounter a festive site. Balloons, noisemakers and cheerleaders will be there to congratulate the graduates. The students will stay in their cars and will be handed a sash and pin in a sealed plastic bag. All COVID-19 safety precautions will be followed.
The pinning ceremony is a long-held tradition for nursing graduates and symbolically welcomes them into the nursing profession. The graduates are now eligible to apply to the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN) to take the NCLEX-RN (national nursing licensing examination) and be considered for an RN license in California.
Many of these nursing graduates will go immediately to work in medical facilities where they are desperately needed to help care for COVID-19 patients.
