Skip to main content

Laurel Archer Copp Papers

 Collection
Identifier: 2022-038

Scope and Contents

The Laurel Archer Copp Papers principally concern Dr. Copp's research interests in the experience of pain and its management. In addition to research notes, bibliographies, case studies, and the like, the collection includes a substantial number of Copp's academic papers as well as course materials she assembled for a series of offerings at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, School of Nursing. Modifications in Copp's thinking and approach may be traced in these items. In addition, the papers contain a nearly complete series of student notes and course materials from Dr. Copp's own high school and college years. These items highlight curricula and pedagogy of nursing education in the late-1940s and early-1950s. Included also are four years of annuals (1960-62, 1964) for the Sharon General Hospital School of Nursing, where Dr. Copp was employed early in her career. A group of five 3/4 inch video tapes record lectures by Dr. Copp.

For materials specifically concerning Dr. Copp's career as Dean of Nursing, researchers are advised to contact the University of North Carolina.

Dates

  • Creation: 1953-2010

Biographical / Historical

Laurel Eleanor (Archer) Copp (1931-2010), RN, PhD, was a native of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Although she earned her B.S.N. degree in nearby Mitchell, at Dakota Wesleyan University, her career path brought her eastward, first to the directorship of the Sharon General Hospital School of Nursing, in Sharon, Pennsylvania, and to an instructor’s position at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, DC. While still at Sharon, she began advanced academic work at the University of Pittsburgh, where she earned a Masters of Nursing in 1962 and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration in 1967. For the decade of the mid-60s to mid-70s, Copp held faculty and research positions at several institutions, including Penn State University, where she served as acting head of the nursing department, and the Veterans’ Administration, Department of Medicine and Surgery, Washington, DC, where she was Chief of the Nursing Research Division. In 1975, Copp was recruited to the deanship of the University of North Carolina School of Nursing, in Chapel Hill, a position she held — along with that of professor — for fifteen years. Copp continued as professor at UNC until her retirement in 1997.

Extent

3.5 Linear Feet

Language of Materials

English

Abstract

(1931–2010) Academic career, ultimately as Dean of Nursing at the University of North Carolina School of Nursing, although no papers here concern her deanship. Instead, the collection centers on her research interests in pain management, including notes, case studies, publications, and course materials. These trace the evolution of her thinking over many years. A complete set of her nursing education notebooks highlight nursing curricula and pedagogy in the late-1940s and early-1950s.

Arrangement

The papers are arranged alphabetically by subject heading, then chronologically within each heading. The videotapes (not yet transferred to viewable media) occupy the final box.

Author
Henry K. Sharp
Date
2018
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