In 2025, Frontier Nursing University celebrates the 100-year anniversary of the inception of the Frontier Nursing Service. We are grateful for the alumni, students, couriers, donors, volunteers, friends, and employees who have made an incredible impact on FNU’s century-long journey. We are celebrating this milestone year by capturing and sharing some of the countless stories that make up our history. Whatever your connection to FNU, we hope you enjoy these stories and are inspired to share your own story with us.
Dr. Janice Macopson, FNP-C, DNP, has devoted her entire adult life to nursing. She retired in June 2024, ending her 49-year career. Since then, she has been quite busy exploring and enjoying the art world. She recently served as a presenter at the August Wilson Society’s Biennial Colloquium, held April 2-5, 2025, at the University of Pittsburgh.
August, who is Dr. Macopson’s cousin, passed away in 2005, was a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and known for his Century Cycle plays that chronicled the lives of African Americans during the twentieth century. Dr. Macopson’s presentation titled “Blood Memories: The Legacy of Ella Cutler and August Wilson” served as a deeply personal exploration of the enduring narratives carried by her great grandmother and the iconic playwright. These intertwined legacies reflected universal themes of resilience and redemption.
Dr. Macopson’s own career reflects resilience and commitment to serve. Though retired, she was contacted recently to fill in part time at her previous employer, University of North Carolina (UNC) Health Blue Ridge. Once again, she answered the call to serve.
“They just lost one of their providers and asked if I could help out a couple days a week for a few weeks until they get a full-time replacement,” said Macopson. “I always felt like I had a calling to do something in healthcare, and I’ve spent the last 49 years of my life working in some form of cardiac services.”
Dr. Macopson grew up in Marion, N.C., near Spear Mountain in rural western North Carolina. Her great grandmother Eller Cutler was a midwife and worked with a local physician on Spear Mountain in the 1900s. The nearby Cutler Falls are named after her family.
“My family was the only African American family living on Spear Mountain in the 1900s,” Macopson said. “They were not slaves. They were landowners. Eller had a rough time in that town after her husband Jacob died. But she stayed. She was accused of things that were not true, and she was arrested because her white neighbors did not want her there. But she was resilient and savvy living on her land until her death in 1935.”
Though Janice did not follow in her great grandmother’s midwifery footsteps, she credits her ancestry as the root of her desire to pursue a career in healthcare.
“I feel like there was a calling for me to go into healthcare,” Macopson said. “My cousin called it ‘blood memories’ or the ‘pulse of your ancestors.’ I think it is your DNA, plus the pulse and spirit of your ancestors. It’s amazing how certain things live on from generation to generation.”
Macopson followed her instincts and became a nurse. She became a nurse practitioner in 2001 and later began working with Blue Ridge Cardiology in Morganton, N.C., in 2011.
She worked in various positions in Carolinas Healthcare System and in rural areas such as Burke, McDowell and Buncombe counties. She was the Director of Nursing over critical care services at Grace Hospital in Morganton for nearly 25 years before becoming a nurse practitioner in 2001, caring primarily for cardiac patients.
“The more rural hospitals are where my heart was,” she said. “I felt that group of patients and families needed me most.” Her heart was also committed to being a lifelong learner, which is what led her to obtain her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Frontier in 2019.
“I’ve always been in school until now,” Macopson laughed. “I was probably one of the oldest students at Frontier, but I hung in and made it through, with great support from Dr. Khara’ Jefferson (Program Director for the Doctor of Nursing Practice Program).”
Macopson said earning the DNP was important to her role as a healthcare provider in a rural and underserved area of the state.
“As we see the shortages in healthcare, nurses are the best group to bridge that gap. We know that nurses are the most trusted group of people in healthcare. So, I thought, I already have a master’s and if you can use that wealth of knowledge, you can be helpful to your community. The DNP gives nurses more credibility because you’ve reached the top of your educational journey.”
We want to celebrate our anniversary by capturing and sharing the countless stories that make up our history. Whatever your connection to FNU, we are incredibly grateful to you and want to hear your Frontier story.
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>> Read More from “A Century of Stories”
Carrie Belin is an experienced board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner and a graduate of the Johns Hopkins DNP program, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Georgetown University School of Nursing, and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. She has also completed fellowships at Georgetown and the University of California Irvine.
Angie has been a full-scope midwife since 2009. She has experience in various birth settings including home, hospital, and birth centers. She is committed to integrating the midwifery model of care in the US. She completed her master’s degree in nurse-midwifery at Frontier Nursing University (FNU) and her Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University. She currently serves as the midwifery clinical faculty at FNU. Angie is motivated by the desire to improve the quality of healthcare and has led quality improvement projects on skin-to-skin implementation, labor induction, and improving transfer of care practices between hospital and community midwives. In 2017, she created a short film on skin-to-skin called 
Justin C. Daily, BSN, RN, has ten years of experience in nursing. At the start of his nursing career, Justin worked as a floor nurse on the oncology floor at St. Francis. He then spent two years as the Director of Nursing in a small rural Kansas hospital before returning to St. Francis and the oncology unit. He has been in his current position as the Chemo Nurse Educator for the past four years. He earned an Associate in Nurse from Hutchinson Community College and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Bethel College.
Brandy Jackson serves as the Director of Undergraduate Nursing Programs and Assistant Educator at Wichita State University and Co-Director of Access in Nursing. Brandy is a seasoned educator with over 15 years of experience. Before entering academia, Brandy served in Hospital-based leadership and Critical Care Staff nurse roles. Brandy is passionate about equity in nursing education with a focus on individuals with disabilities. Her current research interests include accommodations of nursing students with disabilities in clinical learning environments and breaking down barriers for historically unrepresented individuals to enter the nursing profession. Brandy is also actively engaged in Interprofessional Education development, creating IPE opportunities for faculty and students at Wichita State. Brandy is an active member of Wichita Women for Good and Soroptimist, with the goal to empower women and girls. Brandy is a TeamSTEPPS master trainer. She received the DASIY Award for Extraordinary Nursing Faculty in 2019 at Wichita State University. 
Dr. Sabrina Ali Jamal-Eddine is an Arab-disabled queer woman of color with a PhD in Nursing and an interdisciplinary certificate in Disability Ethics from the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC). Dr. Jamal-Eddine’s doctoral research explored spoken word poetry as a form of critical narrative pedagogy to educate nursing students about disability, ableism, and disability justice. Dr. Jamal-Eddine now serves as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities (NOND). During her doctoral program, Sabrina served as a Summer Fellow at a residential National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH) Summer Institute at Arizona State University (2023), a summer fellow at Andrew W. Mellon’s National Humanities Without Walls program at University of Michigan (2022), a Summer Research Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Othering & Belonging Institute (2021), and an Illinois Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental and related Disabilities (LEND) trainee (2019-2020).
Vanessa Cameron works for Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nursing Education & Professional Development. She is also attending George Washington University and progressing towards a PhD in Nursing with an emphasis on ableism in nursing. After becoming disabled in April 2021, Vanessa’s worldview and perspective changed, and a recognition of the ableism present within healthcare and within the culture of nursing was apparent. She has been working since that time to provide educational foundations for nurses about disability and ableism, provide support for fellow disabled nursing colleagues, and advocate for the disabled community within healthcare settings to reduce disparities.
Dr. Lucinda Canty is a certified nurse-midwife, Associate Professor of Nursing, and Director of the Seedworks Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Columbia University, a master’s degree from Yale University, specializing in nurse-midwifery, and a PhD from the University of Connecticut. Dr. Canty has provided reproductive health care for over 29 years. Her research interests include the prevention of maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity, reducing racial and ethnic health disparities in reproductive health, promoting diversity in nursing, and eliminating racism in nursing and midwifery.
Dr. Lisa Meeks is a distinguished scholar and leader whose unwavering commitment to inclusivity and excellence has significantly influenced the landscape of health professions education and accessibility. She is the founder and executive director of the DocsWithDisabilities Initiative and holds appointments as an Associate Professor in the Departments of Learning Health Sciences and Family Medicine at the University of Michigan.
Dr. Nikia Grayson, DNP, MSN, MPH, MA, CNM, FNP-C, FACNM (she/her) is a trailblazing force in reproductive justice, blending her expertise as a public health activist, anthropologist, and family nurse-midwife to champion the rights and health of underserved communities. Graduating with distinction from Howard University, Nikia holds a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public health. Her academic journey also led her to the University of Memphis, where she earned a master’s in medical anthropology, and the University of Tennessee, where she achieved both a master’s in nursing and a doctorate in nursing practice. Complementing her extensive education, she completed a post-master’s certificate in midwifery at Frontier Nursing University.
Dr. Tia Brown McNair is the Vice President in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Student Success and Executive Director for the Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Campus Centers at the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in Washington, DC. She oversees both funded projects and AAC&U’s continuing programs on equity, inclusive excellence, high-impact practices, and student success. McNair directs AAC&U’s Summer Institutes on High-Impact Practices and Student Success, and TRHT Campus Centers and serves as the project director for several AAC&U initiatives, including the development of a TRHT-focused campus climate toolkit. She is the lead author of From Equity Talk to Equity Walk: Expanding Practitioner Knowledge for Racial Justice in Higher Education (January 2020) and Becoming a Student-Ready College: A New Culture of Leadership for Student Success (July 2016 and August 2022 Second edition).