#GivingTuesday is an international day of giving. How will you ‘Answer the Call’ on November 28?
Frontier Nursing University (FNU) has experienced
remarkable growth in the past decade, and currently has more than 2000 students enrolled. But with increased growth comes increased need, and many of our students need your help! Currently, less than 10% of our students are receiving scholarships, while over 80% demonstrate need. Our students are dedicated to improving the health of their communities, however pursuing the education to do so creates a financial strain for many. This strain becomes even more critical when they begin clinical practicums and must reduce or discontinue employment. #GivingTuesday is your opportunity to get involved.
This year, we are asking you to support the educational dreams of our students and improved access to healthcare for rural and underserved communities by making a gift to the FNU scholarship fund. Our goal for Giving Tuesday is to raise at least $25,000, which will permanently endow a scholarship. While this amount may be impossible for some to give, through #GivingTuesday you have the opportunity to leverage your gift with those of others to make a student’s educational dreams come true. For example, if you and 24 friends each donate $1000, a new scholarship is created!
We are pleased to announce that long-time supporter of Frontier Nursing University and Breckinridge family member, Susan Graham, is generously matching each dollar given on #GivingTuesday up to $25,000! This means that if we meet our goal of $25,000, an endowed scholarship will be created in the amount of $50,000, doubling the annual scholarship amount for one deserving student! For all those who donate through the #GivingTuesday campaign, that means that every dollar you donate is doubled!
Scholarships support the education provided by FNU which gives graduates the ability to provide quality, compassionate care to communities who need it most. The majority of current FNU students reside in communities federally designated as either rural or underserved populations. Through FNU’s unique programs, students are able to remain in their home communities while seeking graduate education. Kyle Farmer, an FNP student and scholarship recipient, knows that his education will help him serve the people in his community of Leslie County, Ky.
“I am a lifelong resident of Leslie County, Kentucky and I intend on making Leslie County my home for years to come. Since I was a child, I have never dreamed of living anywhere else. Although during my high school years, many of my classmates spoke of their aspirations to leave the mountains at their first opportunity, the idea of leaving my lifelong home was troubling to me. It is this mindset that I intend to carry into my practice as a Family Nurse Practitioner. I hope to serve the community I was raised in, as well as the people I’ve come to know so closely for the duration of my career.”
Currently, less than 200 students a year are receiving donor funded scholarships, which represents less than 10% of the student body, while more than 80% of students use federal financial aid and student loans to finance their education. Clearly, the need for financial support for our students is great: when a new scholarship for students with financial hardships became available, FNU received 64 applications within 48 hours.
Giving to the Frontier Student Scholarship Fund is investing in the education of FNU students, but beyond that, it is empowering these students to make a difference and to improve the overall healthcare situation in underserved communities.
Please answer the call, as so many of our students have, and consider a gift to the Frontier Student Scholarship Fund on #GivingTuesday, November 28! You can give directly to the cause here.
Practitioner Week with Frontier Nursing University! For those of you who participated in FNU’s 
Paul Florsheim had always been impressed with the story of Mary Breckinridge. In 1983, inspired by her fearless service, he traveled to Leslie County, Ky., to become a Courier.
For the last 4 1/2 years, Frontier Nursing University (FNU) faculty member Alyn McGee, MSN, ARNP, and CNM, has been fulfilling the mission of Frontier all the way from St. Lucie, Fla. McGee, a 2005 alumna of FNU’s MSN program, develops the next generation of nurse-midwives and women’s health care nurse practitioners as a regional clinical faculty member while serving as a CNM at the Maternal Fetal Medicine Group.
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).