Nursing faculty--an endangered species?

A present faculty shortage has been documented, and the potential for an even worse shortage in the future is very real. Implications of a continued shortage for both nursing education and practice are serious. They include limitations on enrollments leading to future nursing shortages, burnout of present faculty, or possible decline in the quality of programs. Contributing factors such as aging of educators, fewer graduate students going into teaching, non-competitive salaries, and increased job opportunities for nurses with graduate degrees are explored. Possible solutions include adding more education courses or tracks in graduate programs, obtaining increased federal funds for graduate education, emphasizing the many rewards and benefits of the faculty role, recruiting faculty from new areas, mentoring people into teaching, giving flexible teaching assignments to older faculty members, and making changes in the ways that clinical instruction is performed.