At the heart of Frontier Nursing University is a talented community of students, alumni, faculty, staff, couriers and preceptors. Spotlight blogs feature members of our FNU community who are focused on the mission of educating nurse-midwives and nurse practitioners to deliver quality healthcare to underserved and rural populations.
Frontier graduate Marianna Holland, DNP, CNM, filled a crucial gap in healthcare in her community when she opened her own birth center, New Phase at the Birth Nest in Glendale, Arizona. New Phase, which was opened after Dr. Holland graduated from FNU with a Master of Science degree in nurse-midwifery and a Doctor of Nursing Practice, is the only BIPOC-led birth center in the state.
New Phase offers prenatal care, labor and delivery, newborn and postpartum care, and well woman care. At the birth center, Dr. Holland is supported by a dedicated team of midwives and staff members. In fact, Dr. Holland is not the only FNU graduate on staff, with Bethany Mainville-Brooks, DNP, FNP, CNM, also serving as a nurse-midwife at the birth center and hospital.
In addition to being the only birth center in Arizona owned and operated by midwives of color, New Phase is the only community practice in the Glendale area that maintains hospital privileges for safe community transfers when necessary. The birth center also hosts special events, such as postpartum classes, mom meet-ups and more.
As a Frontier graduate, Dr. Holland recognizes the unique challenges and disparities that BIPOC individuals and underserved communities face in accessing quality healthcare, particularly maternal and reproductive healthcare.
“My goal is to help my community find midwifery and other resources to further support health promotion,” she said. This is also one of the reasons she started precepting.
Dr. Holland is a preceptor to several midwifery programs and has worked with six FNU students so far. The birth center strives to support future midwives by providing opportunities to strengthen their skill sets and build confidence.
Dr. Holland is not only a preceptor, but also a faculty member at the University of Arizona with a focus on midwifery education.
“I want to teach, along with precepting, to be able to encourage more midwives of color,” Dr. Holland said.
Before graduating from Frontier, Dr. Holland served for nearly a decade as an acute care labor and delivery nurse. She said while in nursing school, she was taught by an FNU graduate, an experience that inspired her to study at FNU. She said she was also motivated by the distance learning model offered by FNU, which enabled her to balance her education with her family responsibilities.
Earlier this year, Dr. Holland was inducted as an American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM) fellow, joining 47 fellow inductees who have led exemplary careers in midwifery. Fellowship in the American College of Nurse-Midwives is given to midwives whose demonstrated leadership within ACNM, clinical excellence, outstanding scholarship, and professional achievement have merited special recognition both within and outside of the midwifery profession. Dr. Holland said she attended her first ACNM conference as a student ambassador with FNU.
Outside of her work, Dr. Holland, a married mother of two, enjoys cooking, baking, and reading.
Thank you, Marianna, for advancing women’s healthcare in your community, for helping to train the next generation of nurse-midwives and for exemplifying the excellence of Frontier graduates.
To read more alumni stories, visit the FNU Alumni stories page. For more on precepting, visit Become a Preceptor.
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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).