An event Saturday night will mark a half-century of nursing education at the University of Indianapolis.

The School of Nursing 50th Anniversary Gala in Schwitzer Student Center’s UIndy Hall will include dinner, music, tours of the school and its simulated nursing laboratory, and reflections on the past 50 years. The event begins at 6 p.m., with dinner at 7 p.m., and is open to alumni, family and friends, as well as current faculty and students.

UIndy trustee and former Indiana Secretary of State Sue Anne Gilroy, vice president of development for St. Vincent Hospital, will be master of ceremonies for a program that includes a keynote address by interim dean Anne Thomas and the presentation of a special 50th anniversary Distinguished Alumni Award to Gail Kost of the classes of 1976 and 1978. Guests will include former deans LeAlice Briggs and Sharon Isaac, as well as UIndy benefactors Jerry and Elsie Martin, whose generosity helped create Martin Hall, home to the schools of nursing, physical therapy and occupational therapy.

UIndy’s first nursing faculty began their work in the fall of 1959. In 1965, the university then known as Indiana Central received accreditation for its Associate Degree of Science in nursing, the first such program to be offered by a four-year institution in Indiana and only the fourth in the nation. Since then, UIndy has remained at the forefront of nursing education with its Bachelor of Science and its Master of Science programs, which include the state’s only graduate program in nurse-midwifery. The Accelerated Master’s Program for career-changers admitted its first students in the spring of 2009, and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice program is set to open in 2011.

Despite the continued evolution, the school’s central mission has remained the same: preparing students for effective, responsible and articulate membership in the nursing profession. UIndy nursing graduates are leaders in local and national health care, teaching in a variety of academic institutions and practicing in state-of-the-art hospitals and developing nations. Along the way, the school’s faculty, students and alumni have lived the university’s “Education for Service” motto with community projects throughout the city of Indianapolis and around the world.

For more registration or more information, call (317) 788-3206 or visit http://alumni.uindy.edu/nursingcelebration.