Our History and Heritage
Chamberlain College of Nursing has a 125-year history of preparing extraordinary nursing graduates.
Our roots go back to the Deaconess tradition of 19th-century Europe. Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, studied at a Deaconess facility in Germany and later applied the concepts she learned to her nursing practice. In 1889, an evangelical pastor in St. Louis, Missouri, proposed establishing healthcare services based on the Deaconess model to address the needs of the local community. Those services evolved into the Deaconess School of Nursing and, later, the Deaconess College of Nursing.
In March 2005, DeVry Inc. acquired Deaconess. A term of the acquisition agreement required DeVry to change the name of the school. The chosen name, Chamberlain, is derived from the Middle English word "chaumberlein," which means "chief steward" – in recognition of the critical role of the nurse as the central steward and coordinator of patient care.
Today, with pre- and post-licensure programs, a growing network of campuses, and robust online offerings, Chamberlain College of Nursing continues to raise the standard of nursing education and advance healthcare outcomes in communities across the country and around the world.