UConn Nursing graduated its largest Accelerated Second Degree BS/CEIN class to date. In celebrating this milestone, the School also awarded the Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award to Lucinda Canty.
Students in this accelerated program receive their second bachelor’s in nursing in just one year. Faculty, student, and alumni awards were announced by the School of Nursing’s Dean Victoria Vaughan Dickson, Ph.D, RN, FAHA, FHFSA, FAAN.
Canty first received her BSN at Columbia University, then went on to obtain her MSN from Yale. She joined UConn Nursing alum in 2020 when she completed her Ph.D. “It was a life-changing experience for me,” said Canty. “When I graduated from my undergraduate program, I would not have believed if you told me I would return to school for a doctorate.”
She now works as an associate professor and is the director of the Health Equity in Nursing Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Elaine Marieb College of Nursing. She is a certified nurse-midwife and in 2022 created Lucinda’s House, a maternal health collective that aims to reduce racial disparities in maternal mortality and severe maternal morbidity in Black mothers and mothers of color – dismantling systemic barriers to care through community, education, and research.
Canty was heavily involved and featured in the SHIFT Films documentary “Everybody’s Work: Healing What Hurts Us All”. Along with other UConn alumna Krystal Myers, DNP-c, MSN, BSN, RN, and Professor Emerita Peggy Chinn, RN, Ph.D., DS.c.(Hon), FAAN, Canty hosts critical conversations about racism in health care in this impactful film. In 2020, she and Christina Nyirati, Ph.D., RN, co-founded “Overdue Reckoning on Racism in Nursing”, a series of discussions amplifying the voices of nurses of color.
Canty is co-chair of the Black Maternal Health Taskforce, serves as a member of the National Black Nurses Association, and is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing and the American College of Nurse Midwives.
Preceding the 2024 Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award from the UConn School of Nursing, she was named recipient of the 2023 Yale School of Nursing Alumni Association (YSNAA) Distinguished Alumni Award and the 2023 Florence S. Wald Award awardee from the Connecticut Nurses’ Association. Most recently, she received the 2024 School of Nursing Distinguished Alumni Award for Nursing Practice at Columbia University.
The Excellence in Nursing Leadership Award is given to a UConn Nursing graduate for impactful contributions to practice, education, research, and service. Dean Dickson attributes this award to Canty’s outstanding contributions to the profession of nursing, exceptional leadership, and unwavering commitment to advancing health equity.
“Dr. Canty’s three-decade nursing career is driven by her vision for a more equitable future for new mothers, nurses, and midwives, achieved by fusing science with creativity and care delivery with compassion,” said Dean Vaughan Dickson.
“Her research focus on maternal health has led to an increased awareness of health disparities in maternal health outcomes and uses a Black feminist approach to center on the experiences, perceptions, and voices of Black women to understand the issues and challenges they face and develop solutions to promote health equity.”
Addressing the CEIN students, Canty said, “I graduated from my nursing program 33 years ago and remember it like yesterday.”
“Be open to continued growth and a journey that you will continue to learn about who you are,” she continued. “There will be things that will test you and challenge you.” She urged students to stay true to themselves and to remember that they will find support when they look for it.
“Understand that nursing is a foundation for many things you can do in your career,” she said. “This is only the beginning.”
She concluded, “As you step into your new nursing roles, remember that your backgrounds, history, experiences, and varied paths have uniquely prepared you for this journey. You are not just nursing program graduates; you are the future of health care – innovative, compassionate, and driven to make a difference.”
