On January 2, 1931, the school opened its doors to its first class of 24 undergraduate students under the direction of Dean Bessie Baker and instructor Ann Henshaw Gardiner.
The first students, high school graduates, received a diploma after a three-year program that cost just $100 per year.
[3] In 1938, the school began offering baccalaureate degrees to students who had completed two years of college along with the nursing curricula.
In 1944, the school began a Bachelor of Science in Nursing Education degree program.
In 1984, as a part of Duke University's retrenchment plan, the last class of BSN students graduated.