Marguerite Dixon
BSN 1959, MS 1972, PhD 1982
Dr. Marguerite Dixon started at the UIC College of Nursing before
there was even a building to house all the nursing students. “The
College was fragmented in the beginning as far as meeting places;
we were scattered around different places on campus – up
in the towers, and the College of Dentistry. I don’t think
anyone took offense, but we were certainly glad when we got the
building.”
Dean Emily Cardew (1957-62) talked her into a nursing career. “I
was a college graduate already, and married, which was rare among
my peers.”
Dixon credits Dean Cardew for getting the UIC Nursing program
off the ground. “She got everything through the political
system. The program was a novelty, especially to the physicians.
For us, it was just such a pride in being a distinct part of
the university. It was a new program as far as colleges were
concerned.
“The scholarly aspect was always an important part of
nursing. The emphasis was that you were to be an inquiring mind,
you were to be observant, take notes, and be scholarly as well
as clinically astute.”
She fondly recalls her early clinic rotations as a student nurse. “We
worked with the City Board of Health and also worked with medical
students and faculty in doing home birth deliveries as part of
our early obstetrics experience. We were getting calls in the
middle of the night all over the city and our techniques used
newspaper and hot water.”
She returned to the College of Nursing in the early 1970s to
pursue her Master’s degree. She conducted her research
on weekends in a lab in the College of Dentistry, where university
police would lock her into the building on Saturday nights and
let her out on Monday mornings.
“When I was pursuing my master’s degree, somebody
asked me, ‘What are you going to do with that degree?’ I
said, ‘I’m getting it because I am a nurse.’”
Dixon was a psychiatric nurse for many years, working at the
University of Illinois Hospital, and also served as head nurse
at the Nurse Psychiatric Institute (NPI). With Helen Grace (Dean
1977-82), she created a day care group in the Robert Taylor Homes
in the early 1970s.
Dixon was preparing for retirement when she was asked to be
dean of Chicago State University College of Nursing and Allied
Health, a role she decided to take on to add to her life experience.
At UIC, she also established the Marguerite Dixon scholarship,
which is awarded in her honor each year to African-American PhD
students.
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