Skip to main content

Janet Vivian Graham Papers

 Collection
Identifier: 2022-044

Scope and Contents

The Janet Vivian Graham Papers highlight the professional and personal career of U.S. military nurse Janet V. Graham, Ph.D., R.N. The collection contains materials from Dr. Graham's educational activities -- including student papers, course notes, and research -- as well as her professional activities in the U.S. military health system, particularly concerning health planning and nursing administration as applied to the development of computerized data collection, management programs, and system design. Post-military documentation covers her one-year lectureship of nursing at California State University, Bakersfield, and her four-year appointment as Assistant, then Associate Professor and interim chair of nursing at Henderson State University, in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Included in this material are documents relative to a Russian-American nursing exchange program, and to the attempt to close the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at Henderson.

Dates

  • Creation: 1952-2006

Biographical / Historical

Janet Vivian Graham (b. 1943) was born in Parker, Arizona, and grew up in several locations in the American West, including Idaho, Washington state, Oregon, and California. She graduated from Shasta Union High School in Redding California, and earned a B.S. in Nursing, cum laude, from Fresno State College in 1967. She joined the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps that year, and completed the Women Officers' School program in Newport, Rhode Island. Among her Naval assignments was a two-year posting in Taiwan, at Taipei and Kaohshiung. Graham served as a Naval recruiter in the early 1970s, and subsequently resigned her commission to attend the Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, from which she obtained a Masters in Social Work in 1974. Graham had retained status in the Naval Reserves, but shortly afterward arranged a transfer to active duty with the Army Nurse Corps, which she held for the remainder of her military career. She obtained positions as a nursing methods analyst and medical planner, then began doctoral studies at Indiana University/Perdue University. These she completed in 1981, with a dissertation entitled: "Exit and Voice: the Predictions of Political Behavior by Nurses Engaged in Hospital Practice." Until her retirement from the military in 1992, after 25 years of service, Graham held a variety of postings relative to nursing unit management, and, more significantly, health care information systems development, planning, and research. This was important work undertaken at the dawn of the personal computing age. She left the military with the rank of Colonel. In retirement, Graham joined the faculty of California State University, Bakersfield, as a lecturer in Nursing Administration, then accepted a faculty position at Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas. She advanced there from Assistant to Associate Professor, and also served as interim chair of the Department of Nursing. Here she coordinated the Russian-American Nurses' Exchange Program. Graham resigned her position at Henderson in 2000, after a struggle to prevent closure of the B.S.N. program. At present she lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Extent

6.5 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

(b. 1943) Twenty-five-year service as a U.S. military nurse (Navy and Army), Colonel, retired. Faculty and Interim Chair of Nursing at Henderson State University, Arkadelphia, Arkansas. Papers concern her entire career, especially her military work on health planing and nursing administration as applied to the development of computerized data collection, management programs, and system design.

Arrangement

The Janet Vivian Graham Papers are organized into 13 boxes by general subject or item type. Box 1 contains biographical information and materials related to Graham's early educational activities. Box 2 is specifically related to her dissertation and associated research. Boxes 3 and 4 contain a chronological arrangement of correspondence, separated into professional communications and military orders on the one hand, and personal letters and writings on the other. A variety of materials related to the Composite Health Care System take Boxes 5 and 6, while the Army Community of Excellence Program reviews and other documentation fill Box 7. Box 8 contains materials related to Graham's professorial positions after her military retirement, and Box 9 contains documentation of various other professional activities throughout her career. A collection of publications and reports, organized by title, fill Boxes 10 and 11. Box 12 contains certificates, two first-day-of-issue postage stamps, and photographs by decade. Graham's artifacts are shelved separately from the manuscript collection, in Box 13, with other CNHI artifact boxes.

Author
Henry K. Sharp
Date
2012
Language of description
English
Script of description
Latin

Repository Details

Part of the The Eleanor Crowder Bjoring Center for Nursing Historical Inquiry Repository

Contact:
University of Virginia School of Nursing
P.O. Box 800782
Charlottesville Virginia 22908-0782 United States