Jonell Allen

The Indianapolis campus then was so different from IU Bloomington and from what IUPUI has morphed into today. We nursing students lived in Ball Residence which was already an old building in 1967. We went to class and clinicals through the tunnel system. We watched the new School of Nursing being built.

On this campus my roommate picked up Dustin Hoffman at the airport for the gala welcoming Robert Kennedy. When Bobby Kennedy spoke to the student body during his presidential campaign, we were very excited to see him, to speak to his secret service agents, and to see his dogs who were traveling with him. When he left Indy, his next stop on the campaign trail was California where he was shot and killed. The Vietnam War was in full swing in the sixties as were the student protests on all college campuses.

In following years, 1990 and 2014, I completed my Master of Science in nursing and Doctor of nursing practice on this same campus. Nearly fifty years later, I returned to IUPUI after retiring from Community Health Network as the Perinatal Clinical Nurse Specialist to teach our emerging nursing students. I have come full circle, and I am home again!