WORKSHOP: Launching and Sustaining a Career as a Teacher-Scholar: Research, Scholarship, and Evidence-Based Teaching

Description/Overview: Nursing education continues to face a severe, nationwide shortage of faculty and academic faculty leaders, high faculty attrition rates, and persistently high faculty vacancy rates in schools of nursing (AACN, 2015). In many cases, this prolonged shortage has increased the workload of current faculty and many faculty report insufficient time to develop their courses, research or scholarship, secure grant funding, and meet publication and other dissemination requirements (Smeltzer, Sharts-Hopko, Cantrell, Heverly, Jenkinson, & Nthenge, 2015; Smeltzer, Sharts-Hopko, Cantrell, Heverly, Wise, Jenkinson, & Nthenge, 2014; Yedidia, Chou, Brownlee, Flynn & Tanner, 2014). Despite this, pressure on new and junior faculty to demonstrate their contributions to the research, teaching and service missions of their schools is unrelenting. Without careful planning and support, many faculty members find it difficult to demonstrate progression and to document the outcomes they have achieved from their efforts. This is particularly difficult when anticipated reviewers are not expert in the specialty or the science of nursing education. Integrating these activities to document progression and devising strategies to document and describe the impact of teaching, research and service efforts is critical for faculty members’ success. This workshop, intended for faculty members from all types of nursing programs and academic settings, will explore practical strategies for success as a teacher-scholar. During the workshop, we will explore questions such as: What are the key features of a program of inquiry? What are the most compelling questions we face as nursing educators and how might we begin investigating these complex issues in a systematic manner? What challenges do faculty members beginning an academic career face when launching their career and documenting the impact of their work? How might these challenges be systematically addressed? How can faculty members create partnerships within and outside their schools and collaborate in ways that accelerate individual progression while simultaneously contributing to the science of nursing education?