Hyden, KY — Frontier Nursing University (FNU), with its historic campus based in Hyden, Ky., has reached a pivotal time in its 78-year history. FNU will be moving student activities including all of the on-campus student sessions to a newly purchased property in Versailles, Ky. The move will allow FNU to better serve students and continue its longstanding commitment to the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to provide care to women and families with a focus on those in rural and underserved areas. FNU will maintain operation of the Wendover Bed & Breakfast Inn, the historic log cabin home of FNU founder Mary Breckinridge, in Wendover, Ky., near Hyden.
FNU honors its southeastern Kentucky roots but in order to continue the FNU traditions of learning and excellence in education, an expansion to a larger and more conveniently located campus was needed. The decision was made by FNU administration and Board of Directors as plans were developed for the new Versailles property and it became clear that it was not feasible to operate two campuses. The move to the new campus will allow FNU to continue to expand enrollment — currently nearly 2,000 students — and also improve program offerings in order to meet the growing demand for access to quality healthcare nationwide, especially in rural and underserved areas. We will continue to recruit, educate, and graduate nurses to increase access to quality healthcare for rural communities everywhere, including Leslie County. The change to the new Versailles campus will not lead to additional tuition increases or financial burdens passed on to students.
FNU’s founder Mary Breckinridge established the Frontier Nursing Service and what is Frontier Nursing University today as part of her mission to provide care to women and families with a focus on those in rural and underserved areas. FNU is focused on educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to serve families with an emphasis on rural and underserved to keep Mary Breckinridge’s vision alive. FNU moved to a community-based distance education delivery in 1989 and since has been offering all programs in this format. The goal is to reach nurses in rural and underserved areas allowing access to graduate education to become nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners and in turn better serve their communities. Mary Breckinridge’s vision of increasing access to healthcare and improving lives of families is now accomplished worldwide through the work of FNU graduates.
The new 67-acre campus in that FNU purchased in Versailles will continue to keep the University in a rural county but is also less than ten minutes from the Lexington Bluegrass Airport and accessible from major highways. The new Versailles campus will allow for more cutting edge teaching and learning facilities and an increased amount of lodging for students and faculty. The new space will have approximately 85 offices, dorms accommodating up to 90 people, faculty and staff housing for 18, a dining hall that can accommodate nearly 100 people and expanded education and simulation facilities.
FNU’s vision is that the opening of the Versailles Campus will permanently establish Frontier Nursing University as the leader in advanced nursing and midwifery education, as a national model of excellence for distance learning for advanced nursing and as the heart of the nurse-midwifery profession for the United States. In addition to hosting students, the new campus can be used for gathering leaders in the nursing and midwifery field for national and regional meetings.
All plans are tentative but FNU expects renovations on the campus to begin in fall 2017 with the Lexington Administrative offices moving to the Versailles campus in early spring of 2018. The target date for students to begin attending orientations and clinical sessions on the Versailles campus is fall 2018.
Our Hyden employees have the opportunity to continue to work with FNU in our new location and some positions will be maintained at the Wendover Bed & Breakfast Inn. We plan to offer all incoming Frontier students with optional tours to visit Hyden and Wendover in addition to their trip to the Versailles campus. There are no solid plans for use of the Hyden campus, but we will keep the community apprised of developments and we do wish to see it put to good use for the community.
The decision to move FNU to a new location was not made lightly and has been considered for years as our student enrollment continues to grow. While we understand the implications for discontinuing the Hyden campus, it is in the best interests of FNU’s mission and vision for the future.
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About Frontier Nursing University:
The mission of FNU is to educate nurses to become competent, entrepreneurial, ethical and compassionate nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners who are leaders in the primary care of women and families with an emphasis on underserved and rural populations. FNU offers graduate Nurse-Midwifery and Nurse-Practitioner distance education programs that can be pursued full- or part-time with the student’s home community serving as the classroom. Degrees and options offered include Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP), Master of Science in Nursing (MSN) or Post-Graduate Certificates. To learn more about FNU and the programs and degrees offered, please visit Frontier.edu.
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).