New Nursing Professor

Oklahoma Christian University’s Nursing Program expanded this summer with the addition of Toni Davis. Davis currently teaches a pediatrics course with Professor Trevy Rauch and a family health course. She will be teaching critical care nursing in the spring semester.

Davis said she will have been a nurse for 20 years this September, working in emergency medicine, pediatrics, diabetes management and organ transplant. She also managed a children’s clinic in the early 2000s.

Her story began long before she ever applied to Oklahoma Christian. She grew up in northeast Oklahoma City and learned about Oklahoma Christian as a child. She said Oklahoma Christian was in her blood, but she could not afford to attend.

“We were upper middle class, but it was still a for-profit institution,” Davis said.

She trained as a nurse in Chicago but eventually made her way back to Oklahoma when she worked for the Oklahoma University Medical Center in 2019. There, she met Jeff McCormack’s wife, who was coordinating meals for the nurses at the medical center. She told Davis about her husband’s position at the university, and Davis said she felt hope.

“I thought, ‘Lord, is this going to be my way into Oklahoma Christian?’” Davis said.

Davis said Oklahoma Christian felt, and still feels, unattainable to African Americans.

“It’s almost a place where it’s untouchable, unattainable, because of the scholars here and all the pioneers here,” Davis said. “What the university stands for just seems bigger than life.”

Davis said although McCormack told her she met the requirements for teaching at Oklahoma Christian, she had grown up hearing African Americans must always have more than what is required to be ready. So, Davis said she felt she needed to be academically ready to join, and for that, she needed a doctorate.

However, after she completed her master’s degree, she got a call from McCormack in summer 2020 regarding hiring a full-time faculty member for the following fall semester. Davis said he told her he was calling “to change her world.”

“Immediately when he said that, I was so tearful, because I knew the Lord, all of this, all of the training, everything at that moment, I knew my life was going to change,” Davis said.

Davis said before she applied for the position at Oklahoma Christian, she was applying for jobs but was not getting them. She said she did not know what the Lord had in store for her until she came to Oklahoma Christian as an adjunct in January 2021 and accepted a full-time offer in March 2021.

However, as Davis said she tells her students, life will never be perfect. Davis’s mother passed away after Davis accepted the full-time position at Oklahoma Christian. Davis said although the moment was hard, there was still joy.

“The Lord will not put anything on you you can’t handle,” Davis said. “Yes, your mother passed on, but look where I am. This is like the dream. I was living proof that the Lord directs your steps, literally.”

Davis said it is important to diversify faculty not only for the faculty themselves to have opportunities, but also for incoming students. She said several African American students have already approached her and thanked her for coming to Oklahoma Christian.

“It is a joy to show those who look like me that they can do it, too,” Davis said.

Davis left an impression on senior nursing student Rylee Harris, who said Davis has been a great professor to her.

“She’s also my clinical instructor at the hospital, and this past week, she has taken time out of her schedule multiple times to work with me extra and has let me come to her office for one-on-one work,” Harris said.

Oklahoma Christian faculty and staff can welcome Davis at Heritage Plaza or in The Branch, where she takes her lunch to be with her students.