Empowerment of graduate nursing students: a dialogue toward change

This article represents the first phase in exploration of empowerment of graduate advanced practice nursing students. This phase includes a review of the relevant literature on empowerment and discusses the applicability of this literature to current educational practice. The authors suggest that creating an empowering environment for learning necessitates dramatic change in teaching methodology and in faculty-student perspective about their roles. An ongoing dialogue among faculty and between students and faculty is proposed to begin to conceptualize this change. This article also presents a synopsis of a dialogue between the two authors intended to stimulate further discussion.