The mission of the Society of Rogerian Scholars, Inc., is to advance nursing science through an emphasis on the Science of Unitary Human Beings. The focus of the Society is education, research, and practice in service to humankind.
Martha E. Rogers, Founder
Philosophy
Since its advent as a profession heralded by the work of Nightingale, nursing has been responsible for the development of a body of scientific knowledge specific to nursing and for the imaginative and creative use of this knowledge in the art of practice. The nurturance of human beings is the ever-present and age-old concern of the nursing profession.
The Science of Unitary Human Beings provides a distinctive nursing frame of reference for viewing human beings, the mutual human-environmental process, and nursing practice. Nurses who are concerned with the Science of Unitary Human Beings are challenged to contribute to its conceptual, theoretical and practical development. Nurses are responsible for the logical analysis of the framework and the generation and testing of theories.
How nurses use knowledge derived from the framework to provide a service to society is as important as the knowledge itself. The thoughtful synthesis of the science and art of nursing is essential if the framework is to contribute to the fulfillment of the profession's mandate to provide nursing service to society. All nurses concerned with the development and use of the framework are responsible for engaging in open communication of ideas, questions, challenges, and refutations generated by the framework, and reporting scholarly work and practice in the nursing literature.
The Society of Rogerian Scholars is committed to fostering the development of the Science of Unitary Human Beings by providing a formal, organized structure for the stimulation, development, and exchange of ideas. The formation of the Society is predicated upon the belief that all nurses around the world should have a forum where questions, ideas, insights, and opinions related to the framework's concepts, theories, and use in practice are discussed.
The Society provides a structure to ensure open and speedy communication of current work and thinking within the framework and the most recent developments and revisions of its concepts, principles, and theories. The fulfillment of the mission and purposes of the Society will help to advance nursing as a science and thereby contribute significantly to the knowledgeable nursing of human beings.
History
The idea for the Society of Rogerian Scholars was born in the living room of Martha Rogers' 8th Street Greenwich Village (NYC) apartment in November, 1986. Elizabeth Barrett, Therese Connell Meehan, Violet Malinski, and John Phillips had been meeting with Dr. Rogers twice a month for ongoing inquiry into the Science of Unitary Human Beings. We called ourselves the Dreamers' Think Tank. Except for Therese, who was currently in the doctoral program at NYU at that time, the others of us had completed our doctoral studies at NYU. Realizing how fortunate we were while so few people had this same opportunity to meet regularly with Dr. Rogers, we explored how to facilitate discussion and networking efforts among the widest possible audience. We decided that the best vehicle would be a formal organization that could provide services such as publishing a newsletter and sponsoring seminars. The dream became a reality in 1988 with the formation and incorporation of the Society of Rogerian Scholars, Inc.
We thought carefully about the name we would choose, aside from the obvious. We decided to use the word “scholars” because so few nurses thought of themselves as scholars, compared to members of other disciplines, and we knew the high caliber scholarship of which nurses are capable. We hoped this would encourage nurses to recognize this in themselves and support it in their nursing colleagues, and, of course, we hoped to encourage a continuing wave of Rogerian nursing scholarship. Thus, we became the Society of Rogerian Scholars, Inc.
The initial Board of Directors was composed of Elizabeth Ann Manhart Barrett, RN;PhD as President, John R. Phillips, RN;PhD as Vice President, Therese Connell Meehan, RN;PhD, as Secretary and Associate Newsletter Editor, and Violet M. Malinski, RN;PhD, as Treasurer and Newsletter Editor. Martha E. Rogers, RN;ScD, FAAN, served on the Board as Creator, Science of Unitary Human Beings.
Purposes
1.
Advance nursing as a basic science.
2.
Explore the meaning of a philosophy of wholeness for nursing.
5.
Foster the understanding and the use of the Science of Unitary Human Beings as a basis for theory development, research, education, and practice.
3.
Provide educational forums on the Science of Unitary Human Beings.
6.
Provide avenues for dissemination of information related to the Science of Unitary Human Beings.
4.
Create forums for scholarly debate.