Marcia A. Dake, the founding dean of the College of Nursing at the University of Kentucky, has died in Florida. She was 91 years old.
After earning a nursing diploma at a hospital, she served in the Army Nurse Corps during World War II. After the war, she earned a bachelor’s degree in public health nursing from Syracuse University in New York. She held a master’s degree and a doctorate in education from Teacher’s College of Columbia University.
At the University of Kentucky, she hired the first nursing faculty and helped design the curriculum. The first students were enrolled in 1960. The nursing school earned accreditation in 1965 and a master’s degree program was established in 1970. Dr. Dake left the University of Kentucky in 1972 to become director of education for the American Nurses Association. She later served as the founding dean of the School of Nursing at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia.