Editorial


 2

Editorial 
 

WANTED! NURSING EDUCATORS 
 

Marietta Stanton 
Editorial Board Member 

 
 

For a number of years, we have been speaking about the nursing shortage and the 
dramatic impact this shortage will have on health care outcomes for the United States 
healthcare system. The nursing shortage is especially problematic in the rural areas of our 
country where this shortage affects not only access to health care but quality outcomes 
for vulnerable rural populations. The thoroughly acknowledged nursing shortage is 
compounded by the shortage of faculty to teach nursing. Even in areas where nursing 
applications to schools of nursing have increased, students are unable to gain admission 
because there is simply not enough faculty to teach those nursing students. 

Currently, there are approximately 3,500 nursing programs (practical nurse, 
associate degree, diploma, baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral), "housed" in nearly 
2,500 schools of nursing. These schools enroll a total of approximately 300,000 students. 
With the projected "shortfall" of nurses to meet the health care needs of our increasingly 
diverse and aging population, schools may need to increase their enrollments by as much 
as one-third to "fill the gap," bringing the ideal number of enrolled students close to 
400,000. Using a ratio of 10:1 (students: full-time faculty member), the number of full-
time faculty required to teach those 400,000 students enrolled in today's 3,500 programs 
may be as high as 40,000. Current data suggest we now have less than 50% of that 
number, and the supply of individuals available to meet this demand is shrinking rapidly 
as the result of three phenomena: the retirement of large numbers of faculty (many of 
whom were prepared as educators), the limited number of graduate programs that offer 
options to specialize in nursing education, and the declining enrollments in graduate 
programs that are designed to prepare nurse educators (NLN, 2006). 

To ensure an adequate supply of competent nurse educators, the National League 
for Nursing (NLN, 2006) strongly urges the nursing education community to engage in 
an immediate and focused effort to provide increased opportunities in graduate programs 
to prepare faculty and to provide greater support for faculty development activities. NLN 
also strongly advocates that careers in nursing education be promoted vigorously to 
talented neophytes and experienced nurses who have already demonstrated nurse 
educator skills, and that funding to support the preparation of nurse educators and the 
development of the science of nursing education be increased significantly. In light of the 
looming crisis in the supply of faculty to teach in schools of nursing, the time has come 
for the nursing profession to outline a preferred future for the preparation of nurse 
educators. This crisis must be used as an opportunity to recruit qualified individuals to 
the educator role, to ensure that these individuals are appropriately prepared for the 
responsibilities they will assume as faculty and staff development educators, and to 
implement strategies that will serve to retain a qualified nurse educator workforce (NLN, 
2006).  

NLN (2006) further asserts that the nurse educator role requires specialized 
preparation and every individual engaged in the academic enterprise must be prepared to 

 
Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, vol. 6, no. 2, Fall 2006 

 



 3

implement that role successfully. In addition, each academic unit in nursing must have a 
cadre of experts in nursing education who provide the leadership needed to advance 
nursing education, conduct pedagogical research, and contribute to the ongoing 
development of the science of nursing education. 

The nursing shortage is already having a profound effect on rural areas in terms of 
health care. The nursing faculty shortage will also have an effect on our rural based LPN 
and RN educational programs which act as feeders for rural health care agencies. 
Therefore, this crisis caused by decreasing numbers of faculty is special cause for 
concern for our rural and frontier supply of nurses. What can we do? The time has come 
to encourage our best and brightest to consider a career as a nursing educator. We need to 
provide financial support and good access to programs that prepare nurses as faculty. We 
as a profession need to realize that nursing surely needs folks at the bedside but we also 
need them in administration, in research and most certainly in nursing education. 

 
Online Journal of Rural Nursing and Health Care, vol. 6, no. 2, Fall 2006