Jean MacLean, a School of Nursing alumna who was among the first women to be granted a full professorship at Yale, died Dec. 12 at Laurel Woods in East Haven after a long illness. A resident of Guilford, she was 87 years old.
Ms. MacLean graduated from Boston University and earned a Bachelor of Nursing degree from the School of Nursing in 1933. She received her master's degree from the University of Chicago. During her career in clinical nursing, she served as a staff nurse, head nurse, nursing supervisor, assistant director of nursing service and director of nursing education at Yale-New Haven Hospital and the Institute of Living in Hartford. She began her career on the Yale faculty as an instructor in nursing arts in 1936 and was appointed an assistant professor of nursing arts in 1948 and associate professor of nursing education one year later. She became a full professor in 1954. In 1958 she was selected to start a nursing school at the University of Maine; she was dean of the School of Nursing there until her retirement in 1975.
Ms. MacLean was awarded an honorary degree from Yale in 1953 and received the School of Nursing's Distinguished Alumna Award in 1978. Two awards have been established in her honor: the University of Maine's Jean MacLean Fund, created in 1975, and the Jean MacLean Award of Excellence in Nursing Education, which is presented annually by the Maine State Nurses Association to a nurse who has shown extraordinary skill. She was also honored by the Maine legislature in 1989 for her contributions to the nursing profession and has been listed in "Who's Who" and "Who's Who in American Women."
Her professional activities included service on the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services under former President Lyndon B. Johnson and on the Advisory Committee of the eastern Maine Vocational Technical Institute. She was a member of the American Nurses Association, National League for Nursing, the American Public Health Association and the American Association of University Professors, and served as president of the Maine League for Nursing. In addition, she served on the New England Council for Higher Education in Nursing.
Ms. MacLean is survived by a daughter, JoAnn C. Marra of Guilford; two granddaughters and two great-granddaughters. Memorial contributions may be made to the Jean MacLean Fund, University of Maine, Crossland Development Center, Orono, Maine 04469.