Landmark Events

Landmark events were notable gatherings of nursologists  from the earliest known conferences in the 1960s, through 2017.  The purposes of these gatherings were to consider, discuss, and debate foundational ideas from which the discipline of nursing emerged, and to create visions for the future development of the discipline.  The outcomes of these events included proceedings and published articles, and widespread discussion of ideas presented at these conferences. Perhaps most important, the conferences inspired emerging scholars to develop ideas stretching beyond the boundaries of the conferences themselves.  Here we memorialize these landmark events, paying tribute to the contributions they made to the development of nursology!  The events are listed chronologically, most recent last; the event link leads to a page describing details we have been able to confirm, and historical documents related to each event.  We continue to expand this resource as new information comes to our attention.

If you have information about a Landmark event, we want to hear from you!  Please complete our “Landmark Event”form.

1967 – Symposium on Theory Development in Nursing – Cleveland, Ohio,USA

1968 -The Nature and Science of Nursing – Denver, Colorado, USA

1969 – The Nature and Science of Nursing – Denver, Colorado, USA

1969 – 1970 – University of Kansas Nursing Theory Conferences – Kansas City, USA

1977 – Theory Development: What, Why, How – Kansas City, USA

1978 – 2017: International Association for Human Caring Annual Conferences – Multiple locations globally

1985 – Faculty Practice in Action – Phoenix, Arizona, USA

1985 – Setting the Agenda for the Year 2000: Knowledge Development in Nursing – San Diego, CA, USA

1984-1988 – Boston University School of Nursing –  Nursing Science Colloquium Series:  Strategies for Theory Development in Nursing I, II, III, IV, V Boston, USA, 

1986 – “Theoretical Pluralism”: Direction for a Practice Discipline – Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1988 – “From Theory to Practice”: The Second Nursing Theory Congress – Toronto, Ontario, Canada

1988 – The State of the Discipline – Cleveland, OH, USA

1989 – Knowledge about Care and Caring: State of the Art and Future Developments – Wingspread Conference Center, Racine, Wisconsin, USA

1989 – 2016: Philosophy in the Nurse’s World – The Banff Center, Alberta, Canada (2016 – Quebec City, Quebec, Canada)

1990 – Differentiating Nursing Practice into the Twenty-First Century– Charleston, South Carolina, USA

1996, 1997, 1998 – Knowledge Impact Conferences I and II; Knowledge Consensus Conference – Boston, MA, USA

2000 –  Second European Nursing Theory Conference in Scandinavia: Critical Appraisal: Nursing Theories in Practice, Education and Research – Stockholm, Sweden

2016 – Newman Scholars’ Dialogue 2016: Health as Expanding Consciousness: New Horizons – Memphis, Tennessee, USA

Page updated September 15, 2019