About 150 students, including a handful of men, completed the program that ran until 1966. Although the students were not officially recognized as UVA alumni until 2019, many went on to become successful in the medical field and in other pursuits:
- Charles Barbour, a 1960 graduate, became Charlottesville’s first Black mayor.
- Grace Tinsley, a 1958 graduate, was the first Black woman to serve on the Charlottesville School Board.
- Dr. Anita-Rae Smith-Pankey, a 1958 graduate, later graduated from Howard University Medical School and became a psychiatrist.
- Evelyn Rodgers Garner, a 1961 graduate, established UVA’s first outpatient neurology unit and taught scores of students in her more than 40-year nursing career.
- Louella Walker, a 1958 graduate, worked as nurse at UVA Hospital for 50 years.
Nursing School Dean Marianne Baernholdt addressed the alumni and their families at the ceremony. The Nursing School, she said, is more than 120 years old, while UVA itself is more than 200 years old, and each took part in perpetuating the injustice of discrimination.