Salisbury University students on campus

Nursing Faculty Shortage

There is no question that the ongoing lack of qualified faculty to teach in nursing programs has an impact on the number of students that can be admitted (1). According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing's 2012 annual survey, 88.3% of schools reported faculty vacancies (2). The nursing faculty shortage continues and will persist throughout the next decade (3, 4). According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), this scarcity is attributed to several factors including the aging and impending retirement of a significant portion of the current faculty workforce (5). It is predicted that within the next 10 years, one-half of today’s nursing faculty will retire (3). Additionally, prospective educators are seeking more lucrative positions outside academia while masters and doctoral programs are not graduating adequate numbers of faculty to meet the demand (5). Consequences of the faculty shortage include increased workload and decreased job satisfaction among those remaining in academia and the inability to expand enrollments despite burgeoning numbers of highly qualified student applicants (6). Finding faculty with the right specialty mix and willingness/ability to teach clinical courses were cited among the top four challenges of hiring new faculty (6).

References

  1. American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2012a). Nursing shortage. Accessed April 16, 2015 from: https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-information/fact-sheets/nursing-faculty-shortage
  2. American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2012b). Special survey on vacant faculty positions for academic year 2012-2013. Accessed April 16, 2015 from: https://aacnnursing.org/Portals/42/News/Surveys-Data/vacancy12.pdf
  3. Nurse educator fact sheet. National League for Nursing Web site. http://www.nln.org/docs/defaultsource/advocacy-public-policy/nurse-faculty-shortage-fact-sheet-pdf.pdf?sfvrsn=0. Date unknown. Accessed August 11, 2015.
  4. Expanding America’s capacity to educate nurses: Diverse, state-level partnerships are creating promising models and results. Charting Nurs Future [serial online]. May, 2010. 13:1-8. http://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/issue_briefs/2010/rwjf61023. Accessed October 3, 2014.
  5. Nursing faculty shortage fact sheet. American Association of Colleges of Nursing Web site. http://www.aacn.nche.edu/media-relations/FacultyShortageFS.pdf. Updated March 16, 2015. Accessed August 11, 2015.
  6. Special survey on vacant faculty positions for academic year 2014-2015. American Association of Colleges of Nursing Web site. http://www.aacn.nche.edu/leading-initiatives/research-data/vacancy14.pdf. Date unknown. Accessed August 11, 2015.