The need for a nursing program at Weber College grew out of the national shortage of nurses in the U.S Healthcare system in 1950. Prior to the start of the nursing program, a joint program was offered between Weber and the Dee hospital from the 1920s-1940s, and St. Benedicts hospital from the 1940s-1960s. Weber College was established as one of the two centers for nursing west of the Mississippi River after responding to the survey “The Cooperative Project for Nursing Education in the Junior and Community Colleges” at Columbia University by Mildred Montag (1951). Because of the shortage, the traditional three year hospital based training program was shortened to two years of academic study with or without summer quarters. The program began enrollment in 1953 and graduated its first class in 1955. The nursing program was highly focused on the bedside functions of the nurses but also trained them in a variety of hospital functions. The program graduated its first male nurses in 1959. In 1969 it was placed under the School of Arts, Letters, and Sciences which became the College of Health Professions in 1973. During the 1970s, the program continued to grow and outreached into rural Utah communities. The nursing program would later form community partnerships with the Davis Applied Technology College in 1998 and the Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College in 2011 to offer practical nurses the opportunity to earn degrees and eligibility for licensures. A bachelor’s in nursing was first offered in 1987. The first online courses began in 1997. In 2008 Weber State University began offering a master’s in nursing and in 2009 the Department of Nursing was renamed the School of Nursing.