A framework for planned change: achieving a funded PhD program in nursing

This paper describes a process of planned change undertaken by a group of graduate nursing students of the University of Alberta. Their goal, a funded PhD program in Nursing, was realized fourteen months after their initial meeting. The message of their story is a simple yet significant one for all nurses who wish to influence their environment: Using a framework of planned change, a group of people who organize and commit themselves to a clear goal can become impossible to ignore. In the complexities and uncertainties of today's health care system, many nursing leaders wonder how to effectively insert themselves into the changes occurring in their environments. In this paper, the process of planned change is described through the story of one group of nurses who deliberately set out to reach a desired goal: a funded PhD Program in Nursing at the University of Alberta. Fourteen months later on December 21, 1990, a funded PhD Program in Nursing became a reality. In the early 1980's, several nurses attempted to establish doctoral education for nurses in Canada. The need was for nurse researchers and leaders with doctoral qualifications within the Canadian context. By 1986, the collaboration of nursing faculties at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and the University of Calgary was well under way. The work of Dr. Shirley Stinson, Dr. Janetta McPhail, and Dr. Margaret Scott-Wright with their colleagues resulted in academic approval for the first PhD Program in Nursing in Canada, at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. The starting date of the program, however, was subject to the availability of funding. Funding remained elusive for the next three years, and in the fall of 1989, the Nursing Graduate Student Association decided to form a committee to obtain funding for the doctoral nursing program. Nineteen graduate nursing students from the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary banded together to create the "Nursing PhD Program a Reality" group (NPPR). The group used a framework of planned change based on concepts found in the literature on power, politics, and political action.