For This DNP Alum, a Lifetime of Achievements at Just 37 Years Old
Clifton Kenon Jr., DNP ’12, poses with the lifetime achievement award given to him this year by the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses. (Courtesy of Clifton Kenon Jr.)
Clifton Kenon Jr., DNP ’12, was in the third grade when he told his teacher he wanted to be a nurse.
She looked at him and said, “And become a nurse you shall.”
In hindsight, it sounds like a prophecy. Born in Pennsylvania, raised in rural North Carolina, Kenon became a registered nurse when he was 19 years old. In 2012, he received his Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from Chatham University. And, at just 37 years old, he received this year the Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric, and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) Lifetime Achievement Award for exemplary nursing care of women and newborns.
In reality, it seems more likely Kenon’s teacher saw not the future, but a child filled with a conviction and drive for nursing that remains in the man today. That passion was sparked at a young age, Kenon said.
“Being a nurse has been my only career aspiration,” he said. “I had childhood asthma and interacted with the healthcare sector quite a bit. Nurses were always remarkable people.”
As a nurse, Kenon’s done remarkable things. His lifetime achievement award comes after nearly 18 years working as a lactation consultant. When he completed nursing school, he went to work birthing babies as an obstetrical nurse. He then ascended to the role of director in a federal health service program. Now, he works in foreign affairs, doing diplomacy and international development.
“It’s the profession that’s made all of my dreams come true,” he said. “Being a nurse has allowed me to influence and work alongside cultures and populations all throughout the world on health, policy, and community self-determination, among other things.”
Change, Transform, Be a Leader
As he gained more experience as a nurse, Kenon eventually landed at the Indian Health Service, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
He was the director of maternal and child health for the Northern Plains region, working in North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska. In addition to the important work, the location appealed to him because of his upbringing in rural North Carolina.
Around this time, he began looking for a terminal degree focused on executive leadership. “I knew I wanted to do the Doctorate of Nursing Practice,” he said. “There were very few accredited programs, and Chatham was one of them.”
After an informational phone call with Diane Hunker, the director of Chatham’s nursing program, he knew Chatham was the place to go and never considered anywhere else as an option.
“I learned at Chatham that the power to learn, change, transform—the power to influence and be a leader—was within the realm of possibility through nursing,” he said.
One influential professor, Debra M. Wolf, pushed him to tie research and evidence-based practice to policy, Kenon said. “That was really important to me, because many of my classmates were advanced practice nurses. I was not.”
Other lessons were more practical, like teaching the importance of writing skills. “I’ve been able to go forth and contribute to scientific literature in a variety of ways … to make policy decisions and advocate for policy decisions on a worldwide platform.”
A Nurse Focused on the Nursing
Just a year after he became an RN, Kenon received another prophetic message, this time from his older colleagues.
“I have done lactation from day one,” Kenon explained. “I started as a mother-baby nurse. A core function was to do lactation. I was inspired to do that by some consultants from the baby-boomer generation who picked me out and said, ‘You are going to be a lactation consultant.’ It’s not something I considered as a male nurse.”
They taught him a lot. He became a consultant at age 22, helping families with breastfeeding. In particular, he worked with those who had difficulty with lactation. That work led him to his more recent focus in lactation policy on both the national and international stages.
What does lactation policy look like? Kenon said one recent example is the PUMP Act, which was passed by Congress in late 2022. The law requires many employers to provide break time and private space for employees for the purpose of pumping breast milk.
“There have been tremendous policy gains, and there is still work to be done,” Kenon said of the PUMP Act and other initiatives, like a push to ease Transportation Security Administration regulations on breastmilk and lactation gear. “Because of the investment in the profession and the broader human lactation movement … those things are very much a reality today.”
(Courtesy of Clifton Kenon Jr.)
A Lifetime of Achievements
The AWHONN, who recently honored Kenon with a lifetime achievement award, was an organization in which Kenon “grew up,” he said. They honored him with a national leadership award in 2014, he’s been appointed to several of its committees, and served as a representative of the org.
“It’s the home for nurses that do the type of nursing I do, and I’ve always been a part of it,” he said.
When a onetime mentor served as a reference for Kenon’s nomination to the lifetime achievement award, he waited for the process to play out, figuring one of the older nominees—among them, the aforementioned nurse who helped nominate him—would win in the end.
“Winning a lifetime award at 37 is likely not something anyone expects to do,” he said. He added that he was the first millennial nurse to win the award, calling it a “tremendous honor” to represent his generation as a nurse.
But what he also termed “tremendous” was the amount of work left to do: continuing to strengthen nursing research, positioning nursing as a profession involved in global leadership, and empowering rural communities with the infrastructure and resources to care for themselves—a lifetime or two of other goals.
Even as he looked to the future, reflected on his achievements, and spoke about nursing in global terms, Kenon went back again to growing up in North Carolina, in a small town where the busiest intersection had a blinking, yellow caution light. “That’s such a part of my story, and I live in rural America to this day, because my commitment is to rural America.”
Chatham’s Doctor of Nursing Practice program is designed for working nurses looking to advance their careers. Learn more at chatham.edu.