Sunday, 17 November 2019
Paul C. Herman DNP, MSN, RNC
Assistant Director/Associate Professor School of Nursing
California State University, Chico
EEAI Scholar
ABSTRACT
Background:
The importance of a strong orientation for new faculty has received significant attention in recent literature, which notes the importance of acknowledging, and attending to the fact that, individuals who assume a faculty position for the first time are making a work-role transition from that of expert clinician to that of novice academic educator. Nursing education leaders and administrators worry that an inevitable nurse faculty shortage will adversely affect nursing education in the not too distant future. Factors contributing to this looming crisis include inadequate numbers of available potential faculty. Recruiting and retaining expert nursing faculty is imperative to meeting current and projected needs. According to statistics from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing report (2014), people who enter nursing education as a career tend to do so later in life. The mean age of Doctoral-prepared faculty was 56.86. Nursing faculty also tend to retire early at the age of 64.4 on average, which means the United States currently has a shortage of academically trained faculty to teach classes. Peer mentoring and co-mentoring are characterized by shared support and caring, which are considered important for engendering community, preserving scholarship, and cultivating teaching practices. The current faculty at Chico State University is no exception to the factors described earlier. Over the next several years, our faculty will be facing the many challenges many other schools of nursing are facing. The combination of retirements, resignations and attrition will leave our department with many vacancies. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring and develop a model
as a method for supporting comprehensive career planning and strategic development in new faculty. Effective mentoring relationships reflect a variety of models, which enable members of the academic nursing community to establish and maintain healthful work environments, and expecting each to fulfill this role. Mentoring is a popular concept that has been used in business, education, and other fields to socialize new individuals to new roles. Research has documented that new faculty often feel a lack of support and recognition by colleagues, but collaborating with receptive others helps them overcome their feelings of isolation. Peer mentoring and co-mentoring are characterized by shared support and caring, which are considered important for engendering community, preserving scholarship, and cultivating teaching practices. The evidence from this study lends support for mentorship in nursing education and will help with recruitment, job satisfaction, retention and more importantly, ensure sustainability in our department for years to come.
Keywords:
Career development, mentoring, professional development, mentoring roadmap, higher education, faculty orientation
Assistant Director/Associate Professor School of Nursing
California State University, Chico
EEAI Scholar
ABSTRACT
Background:
The importance of a strong orientation for new faculty has received significant attention in recent literature, which notes the importance of acknowledging, and attending to the fact that, individuals who assume a faculty position for the first time are making a work-role transition from that of expert clinician to that of novice academic educator. Nursing education leaders and administrators worry that an inevitable nurse faculty shortage will adversely affect nursing education in the not too distant future. Factors contributing to this looming crisis include inadequate numbers of available potential faculty. Recruiting and retaining expert nursing faculty is imperative to meeting current and projected needs. According to statistics from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing report (2014), people who enter nursing education as a career tend to do so later in life. The mean age of Doctoral-prepared faculty was 56.86. Nursing faculty also tend to retire early at the age of 64.4 on average, which means the United States currently has a shortage of academically trained faculty to teach classes. Peer mentoring and co-mentoring are characterized by shared support and caring, which are considered important for engendering community, preserving scholarship, and cultivating teaching practices. The current faculty at Chico State University is no exception to the factors described earlier. Over the next several years, our faculty will be facing the many challenges many other schools of nursing are facing. The combination of retirements, resignations and attrition will leave our department with many vacancies. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of mentoring and develop a model
as a method for supporting comprehensive career planning and strategic development in new faculty. Effective mentoring relationships reflect a variety of models, which enable members of the academic nursing community to establish and maintain healthful work environments, and expecting each to fulfill this role. Mentoring is a popular concept that has been used in business, education, and other fields to socialize new individuals to new roles. Research has documented that new faculty often feel a lack of support and recognition by colleagues, but collaborating with receptive others helps them overcome their feelings of isolation. Peer mentoring and co-mentoring are characterized by shared support and caring, which are considered important for engendering community, preserving scholarship, and cultivating teaching practices. The evidence from this study lends support for mentorship in nursing education and will help with recruitment, job satisfaction, retention and more importantly, ensure sustainability in our department for years to come.
Keywords:
Career development, mentoring, professional development, mentoring roadmap, higher education, faculty orientation