The Purdue University School of Nursing and the Family Health Clinic (FHC) have been awarded the 2025 American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) Exemplary Academic-Practice Partnership Award, a national recognition that celebrates innovative collaborations that strengthen nursing education and improve community health. This honor highlights three decades of shared commitment to advancing healthcare in rural and underserved communities while preparing the next generation of nurses for practice and leadership.
A Partnership with Purpose
The Purdue-FHC partnership began in 1995, when Purdue launched its first nurse-managed clinic in Delphi, Indiana. What started as a single clinic has grown into a network of nurse-led clinics providing comprehensive primary care in Delphi, Monon, Wolcott, and Burlington. In 2009, The Family Health Clinic became a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), and by 2014 it earned Patient-Centered Medical Home Level II designation, affirming its commitment to coordinated, high-quality care.
This long-standing collaboration embodies AACN’s Guiding Principles for Academic-Practice Partnerships, which emphasize shared vision, mutual respect, joint investment, and shared accountability. Together, Purdue Nursing and FHC have created a model where students learn, faculty practice, and healthy communities thrive.
What Makes This Partnership Exemplary
The award recognizes partnerships that not only meet AACN’s guiding principles but bring them to life in impactful ways. Purdue and FHC have achieved this by:
- Shared Goals: Both organizations are dedicated to improving access to healthcare in rural Indiana while preparing well-trained, compassionate nurses.
- Mutual Investment: Purdue faculty, including Dr. Jennifer Coddington, FHC’s Medical Director since 2009, balance roles as educators, clinicians, and mentors. FHC reinvests in its workforce through continuing education, creating a culture of professional growth.
- Joint Accountability: Outcomes are measured in both patient care, impact of faculty research, and student success. Nursing students gain immersive training, faculty are able to conduct meaningful research, while patients benefit from evidence-based, quality, nurse-led primary healthcare.
- Interprofessional Collaboration: Students from nursing, pharmacy, audiology, nutrition, and engineering work together to address complex health challenges.
Preparing Students for Real-World Practice
Every year, undergraduate and graduate nursing students, including BSN, MSN, DNP, and PhD candidates, complete clinical rotations, residencies, and quality improvement projects at FHC sites. They experience firsthand the realities of serving rural and medically underserved populations, gaining insight into both the challenges and the rewards of community-based care.
Faculty who practice at FHC serve not only as clinicians but also as mentors and role models. By observing nurse practitioners, preceptors, and faculty leaders in action, students learn how to integrate theory with practice, advocate for patients, and lead within complex health systems.
This partnership is more than an educational arrangement, it is a sustainable model for advancing health equity. By embedding academic learning in real-world settings, Purdue and FHC ensure that nursing students graduate not only with knowledge but with the confidence and skills to lead in practice.
Looking to the Future
The Purdue Nursing-FHC partnership continues to grow, with expanded faculty practice opportunities, innovative research using artificial intelligence and data analytics, and outreach through mobile health units. Plans for the coming years include broadening student placements, deepening inter-professional collaborations, advancing unique models of nurse-led care, and shaping healthcare policy through research and advocacy.
A Legacy of Impact
Receiving AACN’s 2025 Exemplary Academic-Practice Partnership Award affirms what patients, students, and alumni already know: the Purdue Nursing-FHC partnership is a national leader in demonstrating how academia and practice can work hand-in-hand to transform healthcare.
For Purdue Nursing alumni, this award underscores the School’s tradition of making lives better by blending education with service. For students, it represents a promise that their clinical training is preparing them for leadership in a rapidly changing healthcare environment. For practice partners, it stands as evidence that long-term collaboration can yield sustainable, scalable solutions to some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare today.
As AACN’s guiding principles remind us, the most successful partnerships are built on trust, shared goals, and a commitment to co-creating healthier communities. The Purdue-FHC collaboration embodies those principles—and with this national recognition, it shines as a model for nursing programs and practice organizations across the country.
