Frontier Nursing gets high marks from national ranking

Listed third in nation for online offerings

VERSAILLES, Ky. (WTVQ/Press Release) – Frontier Nursing University, located in Versailles, Ky., has the third-best Online Family Nurse Practitioner Master’s Program according to rankings compiled and released by U.S. News and World Report on January 25, 2022.

“We are very honored to be recognized by U.S. News and World Report as having one of the leading online FNP programs in the nation,” said FNU President Dr. Susan Stone, CNM, DNSc, FAAN, FACNM. “We are even prouder of our more than 2,900 Family Nurse Practitioner (FNP) graduates who are providing much-needed care to their communities across the country. These graduates are actively fulfilling FNU’s mission to serve all individuals with an emphasis on women and families in diverse, rural, and underserved populations.”

Founded in 1939 as the Frontier Graduate School of Midwifery, FNU has a long history of innovation and leadership in nursing and midwifery education.

In the late 1960s, university leaders recognized the need for broader education to provide comprehensive primary care to all family members. This led to the formation of the first Family Nurse Practitioner program in the United States and the university changed its name to the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing to reflect the addition of the FNP program in 1970.

”In the 1950s and 1960s the birth rate dropped and there were more treatments developed to treat chronic conditions. Frontier Nursing Service identified the need for nurses trained in primary care to provide services to the rural and underserved communities,” said FNU Dean of Nursing Dr. Joan Slager, CNM, DNP, FACNM, FAAN. “Launching the FNP program was in alignment with FNU’s mission of educating nurses to meet the health care needs  of rural and underserved communities.”

In 1989, FNU established itself as a pioneer in distance education when its leaders recognized the national shortage of nurse-midwives.

They understood that there were nurses living in rural and underserved areas who would pursue graduate education if they were given the opportunity without a requirement to leave their home community. FNU developed a hybrid model of distance learning that transformed the university into one of the largest and most successful graduate schools of nursing in the United States.

The overall student experience is a hybrid model of two campus experiences, combined with didactic coursework online and community-based clinical practicum in students’ home communities. The FNU network consists of more than 140 didactic faculty and Regional Clinical Faculty (RCF) located nationwide, alumni, clinical preceptors, and more than 2,500 students located in every state, and a dynamic online presence for academic and peer support.