Dear Dorrie

DEAR

Dorrie

By CHRISTINE KUETER

IT’S 5:15 ON A WEDNESDAY

A Leader’s Legacy

MORNING, AND THERE’S A LIGHT ON IN PAVILION IX.

Already dressed, Dorrie Fontaine slips down the stairs to the dimly lit kitchen, switches on the TV news, makes herself some Earl Grey and scans her emails. Twenty minutes later, she’s lacing up bright orange sneakers, pulling on a coat, and making the familiar trek through the dark across the Lawn to McLeod Hall where, for the past 10 years, she’s taken part in the longest running meditation on Grounds.

There’s a metaphor in Fontaine’s steadfast presence in this 6 a.m. class: Be the change you wish to see in the world, perhaps. Show, don’t tell. Or maybe: Lead by example.

The weekly devotion also reflects every interwoven priority Fontaine’s had for the School of Nursing during her morethan-a-decade-long tenure.

Show up. Be kind. Embrace resilience. Respect and champion difference. Participate fully, disagree frankly, but artfully. And always, build up those who surround you. They will rise because of it.

For Jonathan Bartels, a palliative care nurse who’s led the early morning meditation class since 2009, Fontaine’s faithful presence is just authentically Dorrie.

“Every person who succeeds has someone who believes in them,” says Bartels, who, with Fontaine, helped establish the Compassionate Care Initiative (CCI), wrote about and spread "The Pause," and ultimately earned the American

Association of Critical-Care Nurses’ Pioneering Spirit Award in 2018. “Dorrie’s helped me blossom because of her respect and the belief that I’m more than I thought I was. And she’s a mirror, too: all the great things I see in Dorrie are the things I hope to one day see in myself, too.”

After more than a decade at the helm of the School of Nursing, Fontaine—UVA’s fifth nursing dean since its 1901 founding—is stepping down. While any leader’s departure signals change, much from the Fontaine era will remain, including the School’s future adherence to many of the tenets Fontaine laid out over her 11-year tenure: the importance of compassion, resilience, of self-care, of interprofessionalism, and the criticality of nurturing a healthy work environment.

Show up. Be kind. Embrace resilience.

Dean Dorrie Fontaine walking across Grounds to the UVA School of Nursing.

DEAR DORRIE

A LEADER’S LEGACY

“It takes courageous leadership like hers to lend credibility to these important efforts to change our institution at the structural level.”

– Susan Kools, associate dean for inclusion and diversity

Fontaine departs having accomplished much, inspired legions, having heard and been heard, and connected and collaborated across chasms that few others have bridged.

Of course much has shifted and coalesced over the course of Fontaine’s deanship. The School enjoyed growth across an era of unprecedented interest in the nursing profession. Since her arrival, undergraduate nursing applications at UVA have more than tripled, peaking again in the last application cycle with the entering BSN class of 2023, which had 20 applicants for every spot. New programs—including a neonatal nurse practitioner and pediatric-acute care master’s programs—today attract a wider array of RNs looking to specialize, while other degree programs have been amplified, including the CNL program, which has doubled, the DNP program, which has grown by more than 130 percent and which now offers two additional pathways, and the PhD program, which, starting this fall, offers four years of free tuition and stipends to each and every admitted student. Programs like the RN to BSN—now available in hybrid format, with two-thirds of courses online—have been reformatted to meet the changing needs of students.

Other creations of the Fontaine era include robust continuing education programs, a suite of new palliative care courses, and rich partnerships around Grounds that have yielded collaborations with Darden School of Business, McIntire School of Commerce, Curry School of Education and School of Architecture faculty. Today, thousands attend the Compassionate Care Initiative’s growing array of drop-in classes in yoga, meditation, art therapy, t'ai chi, knitting, music, and writing each semester.

Faculty hiring has flourished during the Fontaine years. Retention has improved. With 12 endowed professorships, the School’s count of national academies fellows has grown to 47, and today nearly half of full-time faculty are Fellows in the American Academy of Nursing (32 of 65).

Even amid a wave of expected retirements not uncommon in American nursing schools (nearly half of UVA’s nursing faculty departed over the last decade), the School’s next generation of emerging scholars is working hard to make their voices heard. Over the last five years, there’s been a 100 percent increase in the number of grant proposals submitted by research faculty, and the School is enjoying a period of external funding abundance, with nearly $5 million in currently funded projects.

And Fontaine’s vision also attracted nursing leaders. Today, six current and immediate past presidents of key regional and national nursing organizations make the School their academic home (including Virginia League for Nursing president Tomeka Dowling, Southern Gerontological Society president elect Ishan Williams, American Association for the History of Nursing president Arlene Keeling, American Nurses Association past president Pamela Cipriano, Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses past president Emily Drake, and American Association of Critical-Care Nurses past president Clareen Wiencek), and many more faculty members volunteer for leading nursing boards, initiatives, policyfocused roundtables, and think tanks.

Even as nursing programs across the United States have expanded, UVA’s nursing programs held their own in the now-annual U.S. News & World Report rankings under Fontaine’s watch. UVA’s remains Virginia’s only graduate nursing program ranked among the nation’s top 25 and in the latest rankings tied for no. 10 for both its master’s and Doctor of Nursing Practice programs among public universities (no. 21 and no. 19 overall), and again earned a no. 2-in-the-nation spot for its signature Clinical Nurse Leader program.

Then there are Fontaine’s signature initiatives. Last fall, she and 19 fellow nursing faculty leaders and program managers took part in the first-ever Institutional Equity Initiative (IEI), led by noted race scholar Shaun Harper. Reacting against the vitriol stirred at the Aug. 11-12, 2017, Unite the Right Rallies at UVA and in Charlottesville, Fontaine determined to wade into the messy, often fraught subject of race with colleagues and students, making inclusion and diversity, in her final year as dean, her focus and priority. The eight-week workshops organized and designed by Susan Kools, associate dean for inclusion and diversity, buoyed discussion, understanding, and faculty members’ facility in topics related to race, equity, implicit bias, and inclusivity in ways that few other diversity programs ever have.

Just as she did during former UVA President Teresa Sullivan’s controversial near-ouster in 2012, Fontaine bravely stood tall for what she believed was right. During IEI, faculty again noted her solid presence.

“It takes courageous leadership like hers to lend credibility to these important efforts to change our institution at the structural level,” says Susan Kools, associate dean for diversity and inclusion. “That made a real difference. Dorrie’s determined presence lent the process weight, and helped others realize that everyone—leaders, professors, program directors—had to be part of this important work.”

Then there are the many ways Fontaine just kind of showed up. In classrooms. In the Sim Lab. In McLeod Café, or mingling with students after a lecture or in the lounge areas. Popping into faculty offices. Chatting in the hallways with staff.

“You know, she’s not just always upstairs here, in her office, directing and ordering,” explains Amy Boitnott (DNP ’08), an assistant professor of nursing and a pediatric nurse practitioner. “She’s actually here with us. She’s in the classroom. She’s in the clinics. She’s part of us, every single day.”

"She's not just always upstairs here, in her office, directing and ordering. She's actually here with us. She's in the classroom. She's in the clinics. She's part of us, every single day."

– Amy Boitnott, assistant professor

But Fontaine, never one to sit still, wasn’t always at home. When asked to speak, write, or opine, she rarely declined. More than 200 speeches spanning 11 years focused on self-care, compassion, and healthy work environments as she shared her compelling vision with audiences in the United States and abroad.That’s meant teleprompter-led keynotes before thousands at major nursing and medical conferences. Advice to hospitals and medical center leaders seeking counsel on improving nurse retention and mitigating clinician burnout. Penning opeds in newspapers, magazines, and journals, and offering commentary across TV and radio airwaves. She’s even shared the stage with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, given their twin interest in the purposeful teaching of compassion, along with other healthcare luminaries including filmmaker Carolyn Jones, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Susan Hassmiller, Upaya founder Joan Halifax, and writer and physician Lucy Kalanithi, to name a few.

But Fontaine’s familiar presence at UVA was consistent. She and her husband Barry opened their Pavilion IX home countless times for classes, student, parent and alumni events, faculty and staff functions. They kept a stash of yoga mats beside the breakfront. They threw parties for nursing students and fellow “Lawnie” neighbors at Halloween (with Barry’s famous jambalaya), for Lighting of the Lawn, near the winter holidays, for reunions, Homecoming, move-in weekend, Parent’s Weekend, you name it. They grew famous for the festive and intimate birthday parties they hosted each month for School of Nursing employees—more than 100 in all across eight years—and allowed students and faculty alike to bask in their warmth.

The effect, says 4th year Taylor O’Neal, made UVA feel like home.

“As a first-year, one of my first encounters with the dean was when she opened up her house, offering cookies and lemonade, making us feel right at home,” recalls O’Neal, of Richmond, Va. “It set the tone for everything that she does. When she sees you on Grounds, she recognizes you, says hello, smiles, just knows who we are. We feel like we’re safe, that we’re wanted here.”

That inspired affection and loyalty are perhaps the most authentic markers of Fontaine’s success—something UVA President Jim Ryan noted shortly after his arrival.

“One would be hard-pressed,” said Ryan, “to find anyone more beloved by this community.”

E lly Palmer (CNL ’09) was exhausted. Only two years out of nursing school, a precipitous rise in the ranks had her managing a team of 48 nurses at a major metropolitan hospital. It was a moment “when my leadership skills were more important than ever,” recalls Palmer, of Washington, D.C., “but I felt as though I still had a lot to learn.”Late one night, she dashed off an email to Fontaine—whom she’d admired while a student—seeking advice, not really thinking she’d hear back. The following morning, Palmer received a warm reply from Fontaine in her in-box, and an invitation to meet.

That moment, and their meeting later, she recalls, was enchanting.

“I was always just struck that she could make me feel so special, like I was important,” explains Palmer. “Dorrie remembered details about my life, what I was doing, encouraged and supported me, said she was impressed by me.”

During subsequent encounters at networking and alumni events, “Dorrie would build me up to others, too, which increased my confidence, and what I was doing with my career.”

Fontaine’s small but regular doses of counsel and encouragement, says Palmer, helped her find her way.

“I can only imagine how many people she keeps track of,” laughs Palmer. “It makes me think, ‘Wow, she’s probably able to do this for hundreds, maybe thousands of alumni.’ But that doesn’t make me feel like I’m just in a long list of alumni; it makes me realize that she’s pretty special.”

WE THINK SO, TOO.

One would be hard-pressed, to find anyone more beloved by this community.

– UVA President Jim Ryan

WATCH DEAR DORRIE: A LEADERS LEGACY at magazine.nursing.virginia.edu