Frontier Nursing University’s Culture of Caring focuses on how members of the university treat and value one another. Included in the five Culture of Caring tenants are respect, mutual support, positive communication, professionalism, and inclusivity. To a large degree, FNU has adopted the same caring approach to the Versailles, Kentucky, campus it calls home.
When Frontier purchased the Versailles property in 2017 and began construction and renovations soon after, it did so with emphasis on efficiency and conservation. For example, state-of-the-art heat pumps that don’t produce harmful greenhouse gas emissions were installed in 12 new and renovated buildings to improve air quality.
Led by the university’s Environmental Stewardship Committee, Frontier also implemented “no mow” zones, established a 5K walking trail, and strategically planted native plants while removing invasive flora.
Frontier’s rural setting requires constant upkeep and maintenance of the 217-acre grounds by the five-person facilities staff. Additional support comes from the Environmental Stewardship Committee, which is a subcommittee of the Wellness and Sustainability Committee, and FNU leadership, including the Board of Directors.
Susan Capley
“Our leadership has been great,” said Susan Capley, Horticulturist and Groundskeeper Lead. “This has always been a very positive place, and we are enthusiastic about sustainability.”
Capley has extensive knowledge and experience in organic gardening and tries to avoid the use of any sprays or chemicals, unless necessary.
“It’s the soil. When you have good soil, you don’t have to intervene,” said Capley, who previously worked on a sustainability committee in New Orleans and at the University of Kentucky’s arboretum. “What I personally can do for campus is to try to plant more native plants and add pollinator strips along the trail. We are developing the trail with all native plants, taking out the honeysuckle and invasives.”
The walking trail is a campus favorite of students, faculty, and staff. As part of the maintenance of the trail, FNU has put out two pollinator strips with a total of 700 native flowering plugs.
“The pollinator strips are the most active and positive plantings that we’re doing besides beautification on main campus,” Capley said. “This year we have two different types of milkweed, which would be for the monarchs, and we also have some Indian grass, which also feeds the turkeys — we have a large turkey population. We’re developing that whole area behind the faculty house as a bird sanctuary. We’re putting in a native grass that will make a nice nesting area for ground birds.”
True to a university setting, Capley also utilizes the beauty of the walking trail to serve as an educational experience as well. She prints and posts signs along the trail to help identify some of the flora.
“I put out interpretive signs about what the plant does for the environment. I try to put in what’s medicinal attribute of that plant too because we are nursing school,” Capley said. “I just want to keep developing the trail. It is beneficial and cost effective and everybody enjoys it.”
Everyone also enjoys the cherry tomatoes that are grown on campus during the summer months for the salad bar in the dining hall.
“My goal is to grow vegetables for the salad bar,” Capley said.
A sustainable solution for campus garbage is also on Capley’s wish list. Some measures are already in place, including worm composting with tea and coffee grounds used to feed the worms.
While there is always room for improvement, perhaps the most important aspect of being sustainable is sustaining the current initiatives and building on them over time.
“I think everything should be sustainable,” Capley said. “It’s the right thing to do.”
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).