Claire M. Fagin, an educator and advocate for change in the profession of nursing, died Jan. 16 at her home in Manhattan. She was 97.

Dr. Fagin was named dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. During her tenure, she tripled the enrollment, established a doctoral program in nursing, and built Penn into a widely acknowledged world leader in nursing research and education. In 2006, Penn renamed its Nursing Education Building the Claire M. Fagin Nursing Sciences Building

Dr. Fagin was later the founding director of the John A. Hartford Foundation’s national program on geriatric nursing. She was also chair of the advisory board that turned a $100 million grant into the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis, which focuses on master’s and doctoral programs in nursing.

In spite of her advanced degrees, her prominent academic positions and honorary degrees and other awards, Dr. Fagin always made a point of identifying herself as a nurse. Her mother would say that her daughter was not, as she put it “a real nurse.” Dr. Fagin would say, “Mama, I’m an R.N. That’s what it means — Real Nurse.”