Claire Fagin

Claire Fagin FAAN
Interim President of the University of Pennsylvania
In office 1993–1994
Preceded by	Sheldon Hackney
Succeeded by	Judith Rodin
Dean of the School of Nursing of the University of Pennsylvania
In office 1977–1992
Preceded by	Dorothy Mereness
Succeeded by	Norma Lang
Personal details
Born	Claire Muriel Mintzer (1926-11-25)November 25, 1926 New York City, U.S.
Died	January 16, 2024(2024-01-16) (aged 97) New York City, U.S.
Spouse	Samuel Fagin ​ ​ (m. 1952; died 2019)​
Children	2
Alma mater	Columbia University New York University

Claire Muriel Fagin FAAN (née Mintzner; November 25, 1926 – January 16, 2024) was an American nurse, educator, academic, and consultant. She had a bachelor's degree in science from Wagner College, a master's in nursing from Columbia University and a Ph.D from New York University, all in New York City. Fagin’s major contributions to psychiatric nursing, nursing education and geriatric care were always underlined with a strong belief in the power of the activist consumer. As a result of her work to change hospital visiting policies, Fagin is considered to be one of the founders of family-centered care and was the first woman to serve as president of an Ivy League university.

Biography

Fagin was the daughter of Mae and Harry Mintzer, immigrants to New York City from Poland and Russia. Her parents wished for her to become a medical doctor like her aunt, who was a dermatologist in Queens. She elected to study nursing at Wagner College and earned a doctorate at New York University. Her doctoral dissertation covered the concept of "rooming in" for parents of hospitalized children. She continued her research in this area, which influenced the perception of parental visitation in hospitals.

In 1970, she was hired by Lehman College (the Bronx, NY) as Head of Nursing to create a Nursing Department that focused on Family Centered Nursing Care and also psychological care of every aspect in nursing care. She left in 1977 to join the University of Pennsylvania as dean of the School of Nursing.

Fagin served as Dean from 1977 to 1991, when she left to do geriatric nursing research as a Scholar in Residence at the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences. She was Presidential Chair in early 1993 at the University of California, San Francisco.

In 1993 she was named interim president of the University of Pennsylvania (from July 1, 1993, to June 30, 1994), the first woman to serve in the capacity of a university president with any Ivy League university. She continued to focus on geriatric nursing after returning to the professoriate in 1994. In 2005 she completed five years as director of the "John A. Hartford Foundation Program: Building Academic Geriatric Nursing Capacity". She was a past president of the American Orthopsychiatric Association.

Fagin was Leadership Professor Emerita, Dean Emerita at the University of Pennsylvania and received 15 honorary doctoral degrees as well as the Honorary Recognition Award of the American Nurses Association. On November 30, 2006, the nursing education building at the University of Pennsylvania was renamed Claire M. Fagin Hall.

Fagin was an Honorary Fellow of the UK Royal College of Nursing, was inducted into the American Nurses Association Hall of Fame in 2010 and was a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Nursing, the Century Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She was latterly emeritus on the Board of Trustees of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York.

Personal life and death

She married Samuel Fagin in 1952 and had two sons. One of her children died of COVID-19 in 2020, and her husband Samuel died in 2019.

Claire Fagin died on January 16, 2024, in Manhattan, at the age of 97.

Works

• Fagin, Claire (1988). "Claire Fagin". In Schorr, Thelma M.; Zimmerman, Anne (eds.). Making Choices, Taking Chances: Nurse Leaders Tell Their Stories. St. Louis, Missouri: The C. V. Mosby Company. ISBN 0801646111.

See also

• List of Living Legends of the American Academy of Nursing