Associate in Science in Nursing Graduates Honored in Pinning Ceremony

AVON PARK, Fla. – Dec. 10, 2025 – South Florida State College (SFSC) honored 30 Associate in Science in Nursing (ADN) students in a traditional pinning ceremony on Monday, Dec. 8 at the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for Performing Arts at the SFSC Highlands Campus in Avon Park.  

The graduates are Emma Campbell, Erika Coggins, Elizabeth Conant, Shannah Cutcher, Natalia Garcia, Marissa Giancola, Brianna Gibson-Schaefer, Perla Gomez Gonzalez, Carrie Grenier, Mariah Hodge, Iris Jones, Catricia Jeanlouis, Brenda Martinez Bautista, Edwin Martin-Martin, Ciera McCartney, Stephanie Myrthil, Tanesia Nugent, Maria Perada, Shauna Quinn, Brooke Regeon, Veronica Rivera, Aiden Roe, Alma Sanchez- Reyes, Brittany Santos Cruz, Ashley Schrader, Victoria Simpson, Annalise Terrell, Amanda Torres, Griselda Vasquez, Janell Wiley, and Yailin Wong.

Guest speaker for the ceremony was Candy Jones, SFSC Nursing instructor.

Each year, Nursing graduates award the Golden D.U.C.K. to someone who has served as a mentor to the students in the program. The D.U.C.K. acronym represents the foundational elements of the mentoring arrangement: Developing, Understanding, Compassion, and Knowledge.

The Nursing graduates presented the 2025 Golden D.U.C.K. Award to Tammy Jordan-Thelen, staff assistant for SFSC’s Division of Health Sciences. Student presenter, Victoria Simpson, lauded Jordan-Thelen: “She is often the first welcoming face we encounter as we walk through the doors, and she is unfailingly the person we seek when clarity, direction, or reassurance is needed. Though some of her acts of kindness seem small, they provide moments of comfort, encouragement, and renewed energy during some of our most demanding days. They remind us that compassion is found not only in grand moments, but in the quiet, everyday ways we care for others.”

Two Nursing graduates received special honors. Elizabeth Conant was presented the Thakkar Academic Excellence Award and Amanda Torres was presented the Thakkar Clinical Excellence Award.

During the ceremony, the graduates’ loved ones presented them with their individual nursing pins. The graduates, then, passed the flame of a lamp, one to another, before reciting the Nightingale Pledge.

The pinning we know today originated in the 1850s at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Having been awarded the Red Cross of St. George for her selfless service to the injured and dying during the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale chose to extend this offer to her most outstanding graduating nurses by presenting each of them with a medal of excellence. The presentation of the lamp is a symbol of the caring devotion nurses administer to the sick and injured in the practice of nursing. After nurses were pinned, Nightingale would light a lamp and pass the flame to each nurse as they recited the pledge. The passing of the flame represents a formal welcoming of new nurses to the profession.

Graduates of the ADN program become registered nurses by passing the National Council Licensure Examination for Registered Nurses (NCLEX-RN). SFSC Nursing graduates are usually fully employed in nursing within a few months of graduation.

SFSC offers an online Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), a two-year generic Associate in Science in Nursing, a 13-month transition licensed practical nurse to registered nurse Associate in Science in Nursing, and an 11-month Practical Nursing (PN) Career Certificate. For more information about SFSC’s Nursing programs, contact Danielle Ochoa, Health Sciences advisor, at 863-784-7027 or by email at healthsciences@southflorida.edu.