A Legacy of Firsts: How Carrington and Fox Shaped 75 Years of Carolina Nursing

In 1953, the president of the Medical Foundation of North Carolina, Major L.P. McLendon, drove out to Burlington to visit his friends Dr. George Carrington, a surgeon, and Mrs. Elizabeth Scott Carrington, a nurse.

The Carringtons had been at the center of the campaign to start a state-funded nursing school at UNC, and McLendon often called on Mrs. Carrington for advice. On this visit, he broke the news: the school, which had opened three years prior, had problems.

It needed money. It needed top students, and it needed support.

Mostly, it needed to be the best — the first baccalaureate nursing program in the state was setting a standard for North Carolina and the nation. From that visit, Mrs. Carrington’s Committee was born, and so was a special friendship between Carrington and her fellow committee member Dr. Frances Fox Hill, a Durham pediatrician from a philanthropic family who’d helped advocate for the school from the beginning and would be Carrington’s copilot in ushering in its many firsts.

They had no way to know how their intrepid leadership and advocacy would shape the school, or how their legacy would endure 75 years later through the faculty and students who benefit from the funds that bear their names.

‘A good pair’

Carrington and Fox had a lot in common. Both were native North Carolinians and raised with families in public service. Both were well-educated and had a deep desire to extend education and healthcare to others. They were known for their grit and determination, and they weren’t afraid to go for what they knew the school deserved. Carrington recruited Fox, who often taught nursing students at then-Watts Hospital, to the committee.

Dr. Tom Fox, Frances Hill Fox’s nephew, said, “(Carrington) was the one who had the vision for a nursing school and the guts to push it through, in spite of a lot of resistance. And Frances was sort of her sidekick. Frances had the financial support and the connections around the state, so they were a good pair.”

He described his aunt as stately, proper, a force with a calm strength. But she wasn’t self-promotional. Benevolence was just in her blood. “She wanted to help,” he said.

She once said of Carrington, “She never hesitated to go to the top for whatever we needed. She was a wonderful fundraiser, and she would go anywhere, to big corporations in North Carolina, or anywhere, for the nursing school.”

Carrington was dogged in her mission to get the school what it needed. She became a fixture on campus and around the state, talking to anyone who would listen about the funds needed for the school itself and for scholarships to support the students. She went on foot and by car and wrote letters to legislators, often while cooking, and she never accepted a dime for the work. In 1969, she personally persuaded her first cousin James M. Johnston to create one of the most important undergraduate scholarship funds for Carolina, with a sizable chunk earmarked for nursing students.

(Carrington) was the one that had the vision for a nursing school and the guts to push it through, in spite of a lot of resistance. And Frances was sort of her sidekick. Frances had the financial support and the connections around the state, so they were a good pair.

There was no way you could deter Elizabeth Carrington,” former UNC System President William Friday once said. “You have to use the word missionary to characterize her. She was the nursing school’s leading missionary, out preaching the gospel and telling people what the issues were and spurring them on to do something about those issues.”

“It was unusual for a student nurse to already have a college degree as I did,” Carrington said. “That’s why I later worked so hard for a collegiate school of nursing back here in North Carolina. We were getting good young women in the nursing schools, but there were no collegiate programs. And the parents of the top young women wanted them to get a college education.”

Carrington, Fox and their committee worked to earn accreditation from the National League of Nursing, the first program in the state to do so. They also established the first MSN and continuing education program and went to work to secure funding for a new building to house the growing school. The committee and faculty members pooled $20,000 themselves to hire an architect to draw up the plans.

Carrington once told a reporter, “I sat right over there at that desk on Sunday mornings for two or three years in succession writing to both the Senate and the House about several problems in nursing, and I got the money to build that building.”

In 1968, the school broke ground. And, in 1970, to honor Carrington’s lifelong work to better the nursing profession, the school dedicated Elizabeth Scott Carrington Hall to her.

Leaving a legacy

Carrington and Hill had worked diligently together to secure the funds needed to support and grow the school’s excellence, and in the end, they also gave their own. Their legacies live on today through the incredible support of their funds, the Elizabeth Scott Carrington Award and the Frances Hill Fox Distinguished Professorship in Nursing.

The Elizabeth Scott Carrington Award is a scholarship for graduate students who “display exceptional qualities of ability, scholarship, integrity and perseverance.” Dr. Carrington also set forth in his will to establish the George and Elizabeth Carrington Fund, a discretionary fund to be used how the Dean sees fit.

In 1991, Hill established the Frances Hill Fox Distinguished Professorship in Nursing, “in consideration of her abiding interest in and love for the University and in celebration of her three decades of distinguished service on the Nursing Advisory Committee and as a charter director of the Nursing Foundation, Inc.”

Ashley Leak Bryant, Ph.D, RN, OCN, FAAN, is the senior associate dean for strategy and global affairs at the school and the current Frances Hill Fox Distinguished Term Professor, an honor she received in 2023. The fund allows her to accelerate her research in cancer care for older adults, support her research team and focus on her goals of inspiring and uplifting others. Bryant, who joined the faculty in 2013, said receiving the honor as a midcareer professor shows those earlier in their careers what can be possible.

“It’s amazing to see how she’s paved the way for me to be able to do this work, and how I can move that forward and bring others along with me – students, trainees, other faculty and nurses who may have an interest in nursing research.”

It also reinforces for her the power of giving. Fox’s support aligns with Bryant’s own interests in supporting others, as she’s done with the James and Patricia Leak Fund for Nursing Research. She said she hoped others would not only recognize the hard work the two women had done for the school, but also the power in creating your own vehicles for extending those opportunities to others.

Dean Val Howard emphasized the indelible mark Elizabeth Scott Carrington and Frances Hill Fox left on Carolina Nursing and on the profession itself. “Their vision, perseverance and generosity built the foundation on which our School continues to thrive. As we celebrate 75 years of firsts in nursing education, research, and practice, we honor their extraordinary legacy while embracing a promising and visionary future—one where Carolina Nurses will continue to lead, innovate and advance health for all.”

Building on the tireless work of Carrington and Fox, Carolina Nursing has paved the way with many more historic firsts, including the state’s first ABSN, PhD and DNP programs.

And, there’s so much more to come.