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  5. Cynthia Freund

Cynthia Freund, PhD, NP, RN

Professor and Dean Emerita

919-259-0195

Dr. Freund earned her BSN from Marquette University, and her MSN and FNP Certificate from UNC-CH. While earning her master’s degree, she worked with the founders of UNC’s FNP program, conducting the first research about the new nurse practitioners in N.C. She then joined the faculty in 1973 to develop a FNP Program in a newly established regional AHEC. A year later she returned to Chapel Hill as Associate Director of the FNP Program and Coordinator and Liaison for Statewide FNP Programs, helping develop two new FNP programs. She was involved in curricular and instructional activities of the three FNP programs, as well as with the political planning and initiatives necessary to assure FNP success throughout the state.

In 1978, Dr. Freund went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham to study health and business administration, focusing on health economics. Her dissertation, funded by NIH as well as the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics of The Wharton School, analyzed the economic benefit of nurse practitioners. She then joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty, holding joint appointments with the School of Nursing and The Wharton School. There she developed and directed the first joint program offering the PhD in Nursing and MBA degrees. She also participated in planning and teaching in a Summer Institute for Nurse Executives offered by The Wharton School.

In 1984, Dr. Freund returned to UNC as chair of what was then called the Social and Administrative Systems Department. She worked to develop the Nursing Systems component of the new PhD program. In the spring of 1989, Dr. Freund served as Interim Dean and in 1991 was appointed by contract to the position; she served as Dean until the summer of 1999. During that period, the school experienced growth in enrollments and in funding, the new PhD program became more grounded, post-doctoral programs started, and the school was ranked within the top 5 in the NIH rankings of schools of nursing.

Dr. Freund retired in 2000. Later in retirement, she wrote, “A New Order of Things: Origins of a Nurse Practitioner Movement,” a historical study of the development of the nurse practitioner movement in North Carolina, 1965 thru 1978. Her primary source material includes original program material and interviews with the key leaders in nursing, medicine, rural health, and the professional associations of nursing and medicine—all of which is archived as the “Freund Papers” at the Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania. “A New Order of Things” is available from uncpress.org.

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