College of Nursing

In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Martha E. Butterfield

As we welcome a new cohort of BSN and DNP students to campus, we pause to recognize the passing of a significant figure in the history of nursing at UTC. Professor Emeritus Martha E. Butterfield died on August 6, 2026.  

Martha joined the School of Nursing as its first full-time faculty member. After moving to Chattanooga in 1967, she taught at the Baroness Erlanger Hospital School of Nursing. In 1968, she was asked to consider helping develop a BSN program—an unfamiliar concept in academic nursing at the time. In 1974, Mary B. Jackson, the first director of the UTC School of Nursing, hired Martha to help make that vision a reality.

Martha held both a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a master’s degree from Ohio State University. The BSN degree she had earned there was now to be offered at UTC. Martha accepted the challenge, and the rest is history.

Martha often recalled that the idea of a bachelor’s degree as entry into the nursing profession was foreign in Tennessee and met with considerable skepticism in the community. “A lot of people were afraid of what was going to happen,” she said, so UTC faculty and students “had to be good.” That standard remains true today.

Martha was a no-nonsense professor in the classroom and a fierce advocate for nursing in both educational and political arenas. She was a force to be reckoned with, yet she also had a wicked sense of humor and an infectious laugh. She took great pride in every graduate and faculty member she encountered. Whenever we met, she would say, “To see what we started with and where it is now—it’s just beyond my comprehension.”

Martha’s passing leaves a void in our profession that will be difficult to fill. Her legacy, however, endures in the College of Nursing, in the generations of nurses she helped prepare, and in the lives of the patients they serve.

Those wishing to make a gift in Martha’s memory may do so through the UTC Foundation at give.utc.edu/butterfield.

Thank you, Martha, for your lasting impact on our University and our profession. Thank you for the guidance you gave to those who had the privilege of working with and learning from you. And thank you for teaching us how to treat and care for the individuals who need us most: the patients entrusted to our care.
 

The baccalaureate degree in nursing, Doctor of Nursing Practice, and post-graduate APRN certificate at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga are accredited by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (http://www.ccneaccreditation.org).

The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to award bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees.