Learning Objective #1: Describe how nursing leaders and educators in one community worked collaboratively on a grant-funded initiative to develop current and future nursing faculty

Learning Objective #2: Describe the lessons that have been learned from this initiative about developing current and future nursing faculty

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Florida is facing a nursing shortage of up to 71,000 Registered Nurses by 2010. A critical part of increasing the supply of registered nurses will be to increase the capacity of our nursing programs. This will not happen without an adequate number of highly qualified nursing faculty. Current research suggests that the nursing faculty role is becoming more challenging and many potential faculty have had no educational coursework in their graduate curriculums.

This presentation will highlight how nursing leaders and educators met in Palm Beach County to develop strategies to deal with the faculty shortage. A key part of the strategy is a grant funded faculty development initiative that is aimed to develop current and aspiring fulltime and part-time nursing faculty to teach in both classroom and clinical settings in BSN, ADN and LPN programs. A unique feature of the faculty development initiative is that the curriculum was planned after surveying the faculty in the community to determine their development needs.

The presenters will share the lessons learned about faculty development from this project and how these findings can be applied in other nursing education settings.