How does an exchange with a waitress lead to a transformative impact on health care? It all started with a conversation between the late Joanne Barkett Conway and a waitress, who was an aspiring nurse and struggling to pay for her nursing degree. That led Joanne and her husband, William “Bill” Conway Jr., to develop a plan to empower individuals with opportunities to build fulfilling careers.
Since that initial exchange, the Conways have made a transformative impact on the nursing profession through generous philanthropic gifts to nursing schools across the country. Rush University College of Nursing is among the select group of philanthropic partners working with Conway’s foundation, the Bedford Falls Foundation, which is committed to supporting nursing education and ending the nursing shortage.
Building the nursing workforce and investing in communities
Christine Kennedy, PhD, RN, the John L. & Helen Kellogg Dean of the College of Nursing, first met Bill Conway in 2015 while serving as associate dean for academic programs at the University of Virginia School of Nursing. When Kennedy came to Rush in 2020, she reconnected with Conway to explore an expansion of his philanthropy in the Midwest. She reached out to tell him about one of the things that makes Rush so special — its commitment to practice in the community.
“I knew Rush would be able to address the foundation’s highest priority of creating new nurses,” said Kennedy. “I wanted to show them what is unique at Rush, and that is how our nursing students engage in our network of community sites, learning from nurses delivering care.”
Established over 50 years ago, Rush’s Nursing Faculty Practice program developed an innovative approach to deliver comprehensive, direct health care to patients in historically underserved communities on the South and West Sides of Chicago. Faculty nurses provide on-site care to thousands of individuals and families annually, significantly improving their health outcomes. In the process, Rush nursing students gain valuable experience with care delivery in a community-based setting.
Expanding nursing education
Over the past five years, Bedford Falls Foundation has expanded its giving to more than 20 states facing a critical nursing shortage, including Illinois. In 2024, the foundation made a $1 million gift to expand Rush nursing education and clinical care across Chicago.
The Bedford Falls Foundation’s support has provided both immediate and long-term opportunities for Rush, according to Angela M. Moss, PhD, APRN, FAAN, the Judd and Marjorie Weinberg Presidential Professor and associate dean of Faculty Practice.
“Support from the Bedford Falls Foundation has lifted up our entire department,” Moss said. “I can’t express how grateful we are for this gift. It has been incredibly impactful, even in the first year.”
Ensuring access to care
Funding from Bedford Falls Foundation helped reopen the Sue Gin Health Center — which provides affordable health care to patients of all ages on Chicago’s West Side — in January 2025. The gift also supported the hiring of a faculty psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, Erin Miller, DNP, PMHNP-BC, who sees patients in an integrated model alongside faculty primary care nurse practitioners, and Michelle C. Zolfo, DNP, RN, CNML, clinical manager for the Department of Academic Practice Nursing. Dr. Zolfo is building an infrastructure of standard operating procedures across the department that make it easier for both faculty clinicians and students to focus their time on seeing more patients — ensuring expanded access to care, along with quality practice and instructional time.
As Rush innovates, these procedures are the building blocks of an evidence-based, highly effective model that allows the college to train more students for the future, Moss said.
“It is truly meaningful to see students already gaining more hands-on training experience to better prepare them," Conway said. "These types of experiences are needed to build a strong path for the next generation of nurses to become confident and skilled in their work.”
Disseminating the faculty practice model
Rush is also sharing its knowledge with the support of the gift. Moss, as part of her leadership of the College of Nursing’s Faculty Practice Learning Institute, mentors schools of nursing locally and across the country in service of developing their own nursing faculty practices.
“We need to make more nurses, but we can’t make more nurses if we don’t have more training sites,” Moss said. “With support from Bedford Falls, we have the bandwidth to get the Institute off the ground and help other schools develop their own nursing faculty practices so that it’s not just us doing it. We believe this will have a lasting impact on nursing education and our nation’s health.”
For their extraordinary philanthropic contributions to nursing nationwide, the Conways are being recognized as Honorary Fellows by the American Academy of Nursing. The recognition of Joanne (in memoriam) is most meaningful to the family, as it is her vision of helping nursing students that continues to guide the Bedford Falls Foundation’s work.
