182 ■ II: ROLES FOR DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
to nursing education reform. Schools of nursing are making decisions about
their master’s and doctoral programs without data and without national dis-
cussion. The ability to pause and reflect about possible consequences to the
nation’s health care system and its global implications is critical for nursing.
(p. 1)The nursing profession is at a tipping point and must find a method to properly edu-
cate, mentor, and reward those nurses on which all other nursing relies— the nurse edu-
cator. The nurse educator shortage is well publicized, yet focus has been placed on other
pressing issues, such as prelicensure nursing education moving to the baccalaureate lev-
el (Cronenwett et al., 2011; Institute of Medicine [IOM], 2010; Perfetto, 2015), increasing
the advanced practice nurses to serve the growing number of insured individuals, estab-
lishing “seamless” progressive educational tracks (IOM, 2010), as well as defining and
justifying the competencies and expectations of the Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) in
relation the PhD- prepared nurse (Melnyk, 2013; Redman, Pressler, Furspan, & Potempa,
2015). All of the aforementioned initiatives are noble and effect U.S. health care changes,
but without the nurse educators none of them can be actualized. Therefore, the need for
nurse educators precedes the expansive need for nurses. At a basic level, the profession
needs to be able to educate care providers. If there is a shortage of nurse educators, this
will never be accomplished and the current rate of nurses moving into faculty roles has
remained inadequate for years. South Carolina Area Health Educational Consortium
(SCAHEC) predictions will be used to demonstrate the growing need for nurses and
therefore nurse educators. Using a 2.3% growth rate, the number of needed RNs pro-
jected for 2028 is approximately 56,000. Today just more than 35,000 RNs provide care
for South Carolinians. The estimated gap from actual RNs to needed RNs will widen
as time progresses, at the current nursing educational rate (SCAHEC, 2014). These sta-
tistics are not unique either; all states in the United States are facing the same dilemma.
Nationwide, states are struggling to find qualified nurse educators to educate enough
nurses to care for their citizens. The concern about qualified nurse educators is starkly
evident when reviewing the statistics. There is a lack of doctorally prepared faculty and
the estimates predict that retirements will continue to rise at a rate that outstrips the
supply of PhD- prepared faculty (Danzey et al., 2011). The deficiency of doctorally pre-
pared faculty is highlighted by the inadequate criterion established by the Accreditation
Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN), a specialty- specific accreditation agen-
cy. In order to teach in a baccalaureate nursing program, ACEN’s criterion is that 25%
of faculty must have a doctorate or be active in school for a doctorate (ACEN, 2013).
A quarter of a faculty group having or pursuing doctorates produce a faculty group
that are not qualified to produce rigorous educational research or implement evidence-
based practice in education. The second active specialty- specific accreditation agency,
Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE), does not specifically indicate a
required percentage of doctorally prepared faculty. This low percentage and lack of spe-
cific criteria are telling of the long- standing need for qualified nursing faculty. Doctoral
student enrollments in nursing programs have always been a small percentage of the
entire group. In 2004, before the proliferation of DNP programs, only 1% of nurses were
doctorally prepared (Danzey et al., 2011). Ten years later, in 2014, DNP enrollments in-
creased at a phenomenal rate (26.2%) when compared to PhD enrollments (3.2%; Fang,
Li, Arietti, & Trautman, 2015). Although the DNP has succeeded in increasing doctorally
prepared nurses, their roles in relation to academia are still being vetted. Initially, some
DNP programs had educational tracks developed for those master’s prepared nurses
who wanted to stay in a faculty role in an educational organization focused on teaching
and considered a terminal degree appropriate for tenure. Yet, many DNP programs are