[note 2]: 1 [8][6]: 296  [1]: 265 After Erdmann's time leading the School for Nurses at the university was cut short due to tuberculosis, Dr. Richard Olding Beard asked Adelaide Nutting for assistance in replacing her.

Post-op patients had to be carried upstairs by two people to their recovery bed from the operating room, as the staircases were too narrow for stretchers.

Dr. Richard Olding Beard, hired to teach at Minneapolis Hospital College in 1887, was integral in the formation of a central medical school from four existing programs, incorporated in to the University of Minnesota.

Beard was an original faculty member of that University Medical School, and an energetic advocate for the professionalization of nursing.

The curriculum was updated to include a two-month period of service there, introducing nursing students to another set of conditions and treatments.

[2]: 25 Powell contributions to nursing education were many, including establishing admission standards, strengthening the curriculum, hiring qualified faculty, and working to improve the living conditions of the students.

[3]: 37–52  Additionally, Miss Powell was acting superintendent of the University of Minnesota Hospital (1918–1919) while the medical director was on military assignment.

[4] Powell also designed a four-month training program during this time to teach navy hospital corpsmen basic nursing care during the War.

Powell led nursing's response in dealing with the crisis, and created and taught the university's first public health course along with Dorothy Kurtzman.

[2]: 8, 25 [3]: 48–50 The university entered into an agreement with 3 other hospitals to provide an integrated nursing training and staffing program for the whole community in 1920.

Minneapolis General ended its own training program, and the recently opened Miller hospital in this way did not need to start a nursing school.

Students were able to rotate among those three hospitals in addition to Glen Lake Sanitarium and community health settings, in order to gain the broadest possible variety of experience.

[5][3]: 55–60 [2]: 7–8 [7]: 90 [15][12]: 67 [17] Maintenance and support of the nursing student's residence had been a challenge and a focus of energies for Powell during her tenure.

At that time, nursing students were provided very modest housing with limited transportation availability, and often an absence of even basic amenities.

An extensive outreach effort was led by alumnus Minna Kief, including a petition signed by 1,700 students and nursing alumni.

Powell Hall was expanded in July 1945 with 125 rooms and an auditorium, to house an additional 250 U. S. Cadet Nurses.

As students vacated rooms, the space was put to other uses including hospital clinics and low-cost accommodations for outpatients and patients' families.

Miss Powell was instrumental in establishing the Beta chapter of the nursing sorority Alpha Tau Delta in Minnesota.

[6] Miss Powell retired from nursing in 1926 due to health issues, and moved to Charlottesville, Virginia.

[2]: 95  During her retirement she continued with philanthropic work, learned Braille and translated books including a biology textbook for the use of the blind.

She died on October 6, 1943, at her brother's home near Brownsburg, Virginia and is buried in Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton beside her mother and sister.