[This paper is a commentary on Unintended Consequences: Two Critical Events from the 1960s and '70s and Their Legacy for Nursing in Ontario by Kathleen MacMillan and Claire Mallette.]

Some of us are historians of "the present," struggling to define and explain nursing's place in the world, being expected as historians to give answers from the past to difficult questions today. Many of us in Ontario are also engaged in teaching in schools of nursing that are facing new stresses because of the rush to implement baccalaureate entry to practice by 2005, and to engage in collaboration between university and community college programs. This process has been mandated by provincial governments across Canada, and even though we may have wanted this change, faculty from university and college programs alike are involved in a balancing act as we struggle to work together, carving out which roles each will play.