Rallying Forces

Nursing faculty shortages in the United States is a contributing factor to the nursing shortage our nation is experiencing. Nursing educators along with nursing program resources contribute to the production of competent nurses, which our country needs. According to a Boston University article by Ira Kantor, titled “Nursing teacher shortage has ripple effects,” found (http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=1368&id=47494), “nurses say as the current nursing staff retires this number will decrease by more than 9,000 come 2010, largely the result of a shortage in nursing faculty, both in schools and hospitals…As of last year from 670 to 1,200 clinical nurse educators were needed to fill increasing demand, according to the study. Because of this, Conrad says students can wait anywhere from two to four years to find out whether they've been accepted in nursing schools.”

The shortage of nursing educators directly impacts the admittance rate of nursing students, which then affects the number of nurses that are available to serve in health care facilities. Another factor in the nursing educator shortage is low pay. Kantor states, “According to 2004 American Association of Colleges of Nursing statistics, a doctorate-level nursing instructor earned an average of $56,866 while a master's-level instructor earned an average of $55,725…Richard Copp, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Hospital Association, says the shortage will worsen unless faculty vacancies are filled.”

Karl D. Yordy writes an excellent research paper on the Nursing Faculty shortage, discussing factors that lead to the faculty shortage and current approaches to reducing the shortage. To learn more, you can find his paper here: http://www.rwjf.org/files/publications/other/NursingFacultyShortage071006.pdf.

Because of the impact nursing educators have on the future nurses of America, and thus the health care system, we support the passage of this bill. We believe that increasing funding for Nursing programs to enlist more nurse educators will positively impact the America’s nursing shortage crisis.

Political Action Plan:

• Contact Sen. Durbin and the other co-sponsors to get a better idea of the progress of this bill


• Contact Dr. Merle Mast, JMU Nursing Department Head, to see her views on how funding discussed in this bill could impact the JMU nursing program


• Contact ANA (American Nurses Association) for support and lobbying of the bill through all committees and both houses of congress


• If possible, reach out to the legislators with our personal stories to humanize the affect that funding could have on our future health care through nursing school

Key Stakeholders:

• All nursing programs in the United States-Nursing faculty, current nursing students, and future nursing students


• Current and Prospective Nursing educators


• All United States Citizens receiving care by current and future nurses


• American Nurses Association (ANA)


• National Student Nurses Association (NSNA)

Legislators to Contact:

Currently, this bill is in the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The progress of this bill in committee could benefit from committee members viewing our blog because we could provide our own personal points of view on how this bill would positively affect us current nursing students as well as future generations of nursing students. Currently, the members of this committee are:

Tom Harkin (IA)
Christopher Dodd (CT)
Barbara A. Mikulski (MD)
Jeff Bingaman (NM)
Patty Murray (WA)
Jack Reed (RI)
Bernard Sanders (I) (VT)
Robert P. Casey, Jr. (PA)
Kay Hagan (NC)
Jeff Merkley (OR)
Al Franken (MN)
Michael Bennet (CO)
Carte Goodwin (WV)

Michael B. Enzi (WY)
Judd Gregg (NH)
Lamar Alexander (TN)
Richard Burr (NC)
Johnny Isakson (GA)
John McCain (AZ)
Orrin G. Hatch (UT)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
Tom Coburn, M.D. (OK)
Pat Roberts (KS)


It would also be effective to contact our state senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb because they represent our state and will be voting on this bill if it leaves committee and is put on the senate floor to vote.


We would contact these legislators through email, introducing ourselves as James Madison University Nursing students and telling them the importance of this bill to us and asking them to view our blog to gain further insight on the issue of Nurse Educators.

Why Getting into Nursing School is Becoming as Difficult as Surviving Nursing School

There undoubtedly exists a need for change in the current education programs for nurses. As the news of the nursing shortage has spread, many have become interested in pursuing nursing as a career. According to the National League of Nursing, since 2003 the number of applicants has increased to a total of 57%. Despite this upward trend, nursing shortages still exist and one of the major problems is within nursing education. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing found that U.S nursing schools rejected almost 49,948 qualified applicants in the last year. Of these rejected applicants 41,385 were turned away from entry-level baccalaureate, 1,659 from RN-to-BSN, and 1,002 from doctoral programs. (http://www.aacn.nche.edu/Media/NewsRelease/2009/workforcedata.html) The large number of rejections is due to a number of factors including insufficient number of faculty, admission seats, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints. (http://www.aacn.nche.edu/government/pdf/CapGrants.pdf) With that being said, the number one reason found for not accepting these applicants was faculty shortages, with 62 % of nursing schools reporting this as the main issue. In a study done by the National League of Nursing in 2006 it was estimated that the number of budgeted, unfilled, full-time positions countrywide was 1,390. The baccalaureate and higher degree programs had a 7.9 % vacancy rate (32% increase since 2002), and the associates degree programs had a 5.6 % vacancy rate (a 10% increase since 2002). Within one year the problem got worse, with a study in 2007 showed that country-wide there was more than 1,900 unfilled, full-time faculty positions, affecting over 1/3 of all nursing schools. (http://www.nln.org/governmentaffairs/pdf/NurseFacultyShortage.pdf) As this problem directly contributes to the issue of nursing shortages, Congress has begun the legislative process for this bill to increase enrollments in nursing schools to meet projected workforce demands.


The objectives of this bill include "(1) establishing or significantly expanding an accelerated baccalaureate degree nursing program designed to graduate new nurses in 12 to 18 months; (2) establishing cooperative interdisciplinary training between schools of nursing and other specified health related fields; (3) increasing admissions, enrollment, and retention of qualified individuals who are financially disadvantaged; (4) increasing enrollment of minority and diverse student populations; (5) increasing enrollment of new graduate baccalaureate nursing students in graduate programs that educate nurse faculty members; (6) developing post-baccalaureate residency programs to prepare nurses for practice in specialty areas where nursing shortages are more severe; and (7) increasing integration of geriatric content into the core curriculum." (http://www.washingtonwatch.com/bills/show/111_SN_497.html)




Political influences include the backing from various nursing organizations. Some of these organizations are the American Nurses Association, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, American College of Nurse Practitioners, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, American Organization of Nurse Executives , Association of State & Territorial Directors of Nursing, Association of Women's Health, Obstetric & Neonatal Nurses, Gerontological Advanced Practice Nurses Association, National Association of Neonatal Nurse Practitioners, National Student Nurses’ Association, Visiting Nurse Associations of America. These organizations are advocating the need for an increased number of nursing faculty in order to allow more students to participate in nursing school. With so many qualified applicants, turning them away is not only detrimental to the students and their schooling but also to the hospitals that are in need of more nurses.

A World Without Teachers

Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois issued a proposed amendment, which can also be cited as the Nurse Education, Expansion and Development Act of 2009, to the Public Health Service Act that would allow for capitation grants that would help to increase the number of nursing faculty and students. As the nursing shortage is becoming a hot issue in healthcare it would be extremely beneficial to increase funding to nursing schools to allow for a greater amount of staff to educate an increasing amount of future nurses. The amendment would not only help to purchase educational equipment but would also help to increase the amount of nurses prepared with master’s and doctoral degrees to become involved in the nurse educator profession.  An increase in funds would allow for an increase in paid nursing educator positions. The reasons behind allowing capitation grants to help increase faculty and students are indicated by various statistics cited in S. 497. An estimate by the American Association of College of Nursing stated that in 2008-2009, 62.8% of nursing schools had anywhere from 1 to 16 vacant nursing faculty positions. 17.8% of these schools needed more faculty but lacked the appropriate funding to fulfill the needs. In 2008, 49, 948 eligible persons were denied acceptance into a nursing program mostly because of a nursing faculty shortage. It is seen that there is an increase in master’s and doctoral prepared nurses, but there is still a lack of appropriate amount of persons to fill the teaching needs. It is estimated that if the current situations remains unchanged, by 2012 there will be at least 2,616 vacant faculty nursing positions. There was a monthly labor review done in November of 2007 by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics that predicts more than one million new and replacement nurses will be needed by 2016. How will those one million predicated nurse roles be fulfilled if there is lack of funding to increase nurse educators?

The S.497 bill was referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on February 2, 2009 during the 111^th congressional session. The new congressional session (112^th) begins on January 3, 2011. We will continue to track the bills progress during the new session.  Cosponsors of the bill were Senator Gillibrand(NY),Kaufman(DE), Wyden(OR), Inouye(HI) and Merkley(OR).

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:s497is.txt.pdf