At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented and diverse community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, Couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community that are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality health care to underserved and rural populations.
In 1928, Mary Breckinridge, founder of Frontier Nursing University established the Courier Program, recruiting young people to come work in the Kentucky Mountains and learn about service to humanity. Couriers escorted guests safely through remote terrain, delivered medical supplies to remote outpost clinics, and helped nurse-midwives during home visits and births. Frontier has benefited tremendously from the 1,600 Couriers who have served since 1928.
In the late 1960’s, Phoebe Woods spent 
a summer in Wendover serving as a Courier for Frontier Nursing Service. The Courier Program was a family tradition: Phoebe’s mother and aunt had both been Couriers. Phoebe grew up being told stories of the Courier Program, Frontier Nursing Service, and Mary Breckinridge that had been passed down by generations of women in her family.
Phoebe remembers her first morning in Wendover, when she was awakened at 5 a.m. by someone in her room. It was a bit startling, as she recalled. As it turned out, it was an older gentleman named Henry. He and other FNS staff often did this to new Couriers as practical joke on their first morning there. Henry was doing his job and after that day, he came to her room every morning to light the coal fires so that Phoebe would stay warm.
At the beginning of the summer, Phoebe picked out her infamous khaki pants and white polo from the “Courier grab bag” in the Garden House basement–something that had been around since the time that her mother was a Courier. There were khakis in the grab bag that dated back to the 1940’s and 1950’s. The Couriers were able to choose whatever clothing they needed from the grab bag and returned the items at the end of the summer.
As a Courier, Phoebe drove the FNS jeeps, cared for the horses and other animals, ran errands to prepare for tea and sherry hour, and even remembers shooting rats in the town dump, which was not something all Couriers did. Her favorite part of the day was exercising the animals. One day, Phoebe used Molly the Mule to plow a very steep hill by the garden, one of the most tiring tasks that Phoebe volunteered to do as a Courier.
She spent a lot of time transporting patients and nurses to and from the clinics and hospitals. She also was able to work at these outpost clinics and hospitals in the community, assisting with whatever odd jobs may need to be done.
There was no veterinarian at Wendover, so when there were emergencies with any of the animals, Phoebe volunteered to fill this role. She remembers giving medication to a sick cow and a shot to a farmer’s pig.
“I was always willing to do any weird, unusual thing…I was loving this life out there and anything I could do that was different or unusual, I was happy to do it,” she recalls.
After her summer as a Courier, Phoebe stayed at Wendover to serve as the Christmas secretary, a position that her mother had once held, as well. She remembers receiving truckloads of presents from all over for new mothers and families. Phoebe organized the presents by gender and age and loaded the truck according to what the members of the community might need.
Phoebe became close friends with a fellow Courier, Effner Tudor, who also spent a large amount of time at Wendover as a Courier. When both Phoebe and Effner had finished their service at Frontier Nursing Service, they traveled around the United States and Canada together for three months, driving from state to state and camping out.
As she was growing up, her mother and other women around her did not work. Wendover was Phoebe’s first exposure to women working, and not only were the women working, they were running things. People came from all over the world to see how well the women at Wendover ran Frontier Nursing Service. This astonished Phoebe and made a lasting impression on her!
Phoebe’s time as a Courier profoundly influenced her life in many ways. In fact, Phoebe reflects, “There are very few things in my life that affected me more than FNS.” The Courier Program empowered Phoebe as a woman personally, professionally, and even inspired her continual love for Khakis.
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).