The Thought That Counts: The Stories Behind the Gifts Bill and Ruth Lubic Make $500,000 Bequest to FNU FNU Trustees and long-time supporters William J. “Bill” Lubic, JD, and Ruth Watson Lubic, CNM, Ed.D, FAAN, FACNM, have made a pair of $250,000 bequests to FNU. The joint $500,000 total is designated in support of the university’s capital campaign to build the Versailles campus. “We hope that the decades of fruitful and professional relationships with Frontier Nursing University and its early-on Nursing Service will be recognized,” the Lubics wrote to FNU President Dr. Susan Stone regarding the bequest. “It has been remarkable for us to witness your long-term successful and insightful management of institutional and educational goals while improving dimensions in the delivery of quality education and superior health care. Your successful distance learning program, reaching deep into the urban/rural nexus with preceptors, is quite an achievement and certainly has been widely taken hold of and recognized around the country.”
world, this model helps place quality services within reach of underserved, low-income populations. An advocate for such innovations as freestanding birthing centers, Dr. Lubic is respected for her equal dedication to quality of care and family empowerment. She co-founded the National Association of Childbearing Centers, has inspired creation of more than 300 free-standing birth centers, and was named an American Academy of Nursing Living Legend in 2001. In 1993, she became the first nurse ever to receive a MacArthur Fellowship.
“Words cannot express how grateful we are for the incredible generosity of Ruth and Bill Lubic,” FNU President Dr. Susan Stone said. “Renowned experts and leaders in their fields, their support, guidance, and friendship have Ruth and Bill Lubic been invaluable to Frontier Nursing University. Their countless contributions Dr. Lubic has received honorary degrees and to their professions, communities, and to recognition from 10 different universities, FNU will leave a lasting legacy for decades including an honorary doctorate from to come and we are honored that they have FNU in 2011 in recognition of her lifelong chosen to have a permanent presence on contributions to midwifery. our Versailles campus.” Dr. Lubic, who was the general director Ruth Lubic, one of the leaders of the of the Maternity Care Association for 25 American midwifery movement, has had years, is the founder and president emeritus a monumental influence on the delivery of the Developing Family Center in of maternity care and child health care in Washington, D.C. The service is designed the United States. She has championed to improve the health and quality of life of personalized care during pregnancy and all childbearing and childrearing families, childbirth for all women, particularly those including those of low income, who suffer in low-income neighborhoods. Dr. Lubic high rates of infant and maternal perinatal has promoted midwives as the primary morbidity and mortality. providers of maternity care with physician collaboration as an effective and less costly She is a charter member of the National alternative to the physician-based care Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine commonly practiced in the United States. and, in 2001, received the Academy’s Widely used throughout the industrialized prestigious Lienhard Award. Also in
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2001, the American Academy of Nursing named her a Living Legend. The American College of Nurse-Midwives honored her with its highest recognition, the Hattie Hemschemeyer Award, 1983. In 1995, she was appointed an expert consultant to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Public Health and Science. She is an Honorary Member of Alpha Omega Alpha, the medical honor society, and, in 2006, she received the American Public Health Association’s Martha May Eliot Award. Dr. Lubic received an R.N. (1955) from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, and a B.S. (1959), an M.A. (1961), and an Ed.D. (1979) from Columbia University Teachers College. In addition to numerous articles, she is the coauthor of Childbearing: A Book of Choices (1987). Bill Lubic is a retired founding partner of the law firm, Kagan, Lubic, Lepper, Finkelstein, & Gold, LLP. Mr. Lubic practiced law for 20 years prior to co-founding the firm in 1973. Mr. Lubic and his partner, the late Robert Kagan, became well known for their work in community activism on Manhattan’s West Side and their participation in the evolution of the West Side Urban Renewal Plan. They became well known for their leadership role in this area and the firm is now recognized as one of the most active and influential in New York. Mr. Lubic was formerly counsel for the Northeast Neighborhood Health Association, the Chinatown Health Clinic, and for their land and building site developments. He was a member of the Community Board’s Select Committee for West Side Urban Renewal Site Designation. He was the recipient of the Public Advocate Award from the National Association of Childbearing Centers (NACC) in 2004 and was instrumental in the establishment in New York of the ACNM Foundation. Most important of all, Bill and Ruth have been devoted life partners supporting each other’s work and goals for more than 65 years.
