Frontier Nursing University (FNU) associate professor Diane John, PhD, ARNP, FNP-BC understands the importance of giving back to the community.
Diane recently collaborated with several faculty and leaders to host a virtual session for National Nurse Practitioner (NP) Week. They held a panel discussion to talk about how each is involved in his/her community, and Diane shared some of the many ways she is active in her Broward County, Fla. community.
Diane sits on the board and volunteers at the local YMCA, providing education sessions and working with community health workers to improve healthcare outcomes. She frequently has speaking engagements in the community about different topics such as chronic health, the obesity epidemic, hypertension, and lifestyle behaviors’ impact on healthcare outcomes. She is also a board member of the South Florida Council For Advanced Practice Nurses, where she chairs the education and community committee. As chair, she facilitates food drives and clothing drives, most recently to collect relief items for victims of the Haiti hurricane disaster.
The Broward County population suffers high rates of hypertension, heart disease, and renal failure, all linked to unhealthy lifestyle behaviors. To help combat this, Diane received funding from a national NP organization to implement a project focused on teaching healthcare providers and nursing students about motivational interviewing, a way of talking with patients so they are moved to make behavioral changes leading to better health outcomes.
“We have spent many years telling patients what to do. ‘Walk twenty minutes three times a week. Eat these foods. Stop smoking.’ We have made some advances from this direct talk, but we’re not where we need to be,” Diane explained.
“Motivational interviewing helps meet people halfway by leading them to identify behaviors and design a plan of action to implement healthier lifestyle choices.”
The grant allows her to offer motivational interviewing courses to NPs, advanced practice nurses, community health workers, and student nurses. Initially created as a tool for substance abusers, the motivational interview method is now being used across a wide span of illnesses and conditions, empowering patients to take ownership and control of their own health. Diane’s motivational interview courses also equip students with a tool to assess how likely an individual would change behaviors based on his/her conversation with the provider.
Diane has been a member of the FNU team since 2012. She currently serves in the academic affairs division as a curriculum and course design coach.
Diane’s favorite thing about being part of the FNU team is collaboration and effective communication across departments, programs and individuals.
“I have worked in brick and mortar academic organizations in the past, and communicating was always an issue, but at FNU, a lot of effort is put into communication and transparency,” she said.
Diane would like to thank FNU Department Chair of Family Nursing Dr. Lisa Chappell and the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Dr. Rachel Mack for recognizing all the individual things that faculty do that align with the nursing profession, particularly outside of the FNU organization. “They are truly interested in what we do beyond our work at Frontier,” said Diane.
In addition to her faculty position and community work, Diane is a family nurse practitioner (FNP) whose practice works closely with veterans and the geriatric population.
Thank you, Diane, for the many ways you serve your communities, both at FNU and in Broward County!
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).