Challenges to remedying nursing shortages
Data from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) shows that the topmost barrier to recruiting of faculty is noncompetitive salaries (37%), but there’s also a gap in the areas of credentials: Nearly 84% of all faculty vacancies require or prefer doctoral preparation, yet PhD enrollments have dropped more than 17% during the past decade. Even as programs consider easing their requirements, enrollment in master’s nursing programs is also declining. The result? A shrinking, aging pool of potential nurse educators.
Today’s nursing faculty must teach in a changing landscape, with new instructional models and new technologies. The shift to competency-based education poses another challenge because programs are recasting their programs to align with the AACN Essentials framework and are demonstrating what students can do rather than what they know. Potential faculty can feel daunted by the uncertainties created by this massive overhaul in curriculum and assessment. Plus, 82% of faculty say they feel unprepared to integrate new technologies, which is quickly becoming standard practice for teaching.
Once faculty are hired, many become discouraged by lack of training and support. Some describe the isolation of being assigned to complex courses without clear expectations, onboarding, or mentorship, whereas other faculty become frustrated by lack of recognition. The result is often burnout, compounded by heavy workloads and insufficient pay, which lead to turnover.
A framework to strengthen the nurse educator pipeline
Programs seeking to strengthen their nurse educator pipelines should consider three key pillars. Each requires creative thinking to balance short-term recruitment needs with the program’s long-term interests. Such a framework can help programs reclaim control of their nurse educator pipeline and position their programs for success.
1. Expand the pool of teachers
Meeting the growing demand for nursing faculty requires rethinking the nurse educator pipeline. Traditional recruitment efforts, which have focused on nurses already in academia, are no longer sufficient. Rather, programs should look to more creative staffing models.
Many of the best candidates actively work in clinical practice and may be reluctant to abandon the bedside. Joint appointment models can bridge practice with academia, giving nurses balance. Through these models, healthcare systems agree to release a nurse for one or two days a week to serve as clinical faculty. Such faculty service can boost salary while fostering academic growth and offering career flexibility. Faculty service also tightens the relationship between health systems and academic institutions, which then opens doors to clinical sites and internship opportunities.
Return-to-teach pipelines can help identify strong faculty candidates. Schools can recruit from the deep and trusted talent pool of their own graduates, which becomes especially effective when schools mentor students into their own graduate programs and then guide them toward the master’s and doctoral pathways best aligned with educator preparation.
Retired faculty can fill gaps through part-time roles that bring expertise back into the classroom. Online teaching, guest lectures, and mentorship roles offer lower-effort paths for retired faculty who want to remain involved in education while enjoying the flexibility of retirement. And targeted training can ease returnees’ concerns about using distance-learning tools or other newer technologies.
Many programs also find success in sharing faculty between colleges, universities, and community colleges. Such a sharing strategy can maximize teaching coverage — particularly in dual-enrollment programs in which high school students begin earning nursing credits.
Finally, schools must look beyond traditional academic job boards. The best new candidates are usually not looking there anyway. Rather, they’re busy in clinical roles and may not consider academia — until it appears in their job search.
2. Remove barriers to becoming faculty
For many would-be educators, the barriers to joining academia seem significant: lower salaries, less flexibility, heavy grading burdens, and stepping away from the bedside. Schools should reframe the educator role to highlight the benefits, including stability, flexibility, and long-term impact. Many of the aforementioned innovative workforce strategies seek to help potential faculty find that ideal balance by letting them grow an academic career while staying engaged in regular clinical work.
Schools have many options to overcome the lower-salary stigma, but they require active advocacy from leadership. Schools can support salaries or reduce loan burdens through fellowships, stipends, grants, and other mechanisms, many of which are offered through federal and state initiatives. For example, schools can highlight access to Title VIII funding and federal loan forgiveness as part of their recruitment efforts.
The best faculty consider themselves lifelong learners, and schools can support that directly. For instance, access to free graduate courses and continuing education stipends, conference attendance, and journal subscriptions can make faculty roles more attractive. Potential faculty can also be lured by a commitment to trusted resources and curriculum, such as Lippincott Nursing Education’s full curriculum solutions, including Lippincott Advisor.
Most importantly, recruiters should pay attention when a candidate declines an offer. Ask the candidates for the reasons, and then strive to understand — and overcome — the barriers.
3. Invest in the next generation of educators
Keeping the nurse educator pipeline full is not a onetime project. Rather, it is a generational effort that starts on a nursing student’s first day. Schools should plant the seed early: being a nurse educator offers a viable, interesting, and rewarding career path.
Schools should expose students to academic roles early and often throughout their education. They should offer nursing students opportunities to shadow faculty or take on assistantships that expose them to academic life. Such exposure can take many forms, including observing lectures, mentoring peers, or assisting in clinical simulations. When nursing education students need practicum hours, a good preceptor can introduce them to a positive, rewarding environment.
This long-term play requires a consistent message: that a single faculty member can build a rewarding, flexible career that shapes hundreds of nurses throughout its span. Many nursing students inherently understand the nursing shortage and its implications for healthcare, and so, demonstrating how nurse educators help resolve the shortage can be compelling.
Start addressing nursing shortages today
From the first day of nursing school, consider students with the aptitude, motivation, and growing knowledge base to become potential teachers in their field. Then think long-term by proactively engaging today’s students in conversations about becoming future nurse educators.
Along the way, reach out to fellow nurse educators for strategies that have worked for them, including the team at Lippincott® Nursing Education. For more strategies, download our white paper titled Teaching the next generation: Solving the nursing shortage through faculty investment.
