11: REPORT ON A NATIONAL STUDY OF DOCTORAL NURSING FACULTY ■ 275modest stipends, and many doctoral faculty may prefer the flexibility of their full- time
teaching roles. Moreover, with the decline in tenure- track hires that most nursing schools
are seeing, will directors and department chairs of the future be NTT faculty? This is
very likely to be a trend among DNP program directors and chairs if they are going to be
institutionally classified as NTT faculty. Again, if the PhD chair is tenured and the DNP
chair is not, what kind of signal does this send to the profession?
In 2012, the enthusiasm for the DNP degree, still a relatively new doctorate, was
at 43%, but when combined with “moderately” (22%), the percentage rose to 65%. Still,
at that time, a substantial number (30%) did not support the DNP or only supported it
reluctantly. We found it interesting that of the 231 faculty (37%) who reported that they
taught in a DNP program (or taught in both DNP and PhD programs), 7% did not sup-
port the DNP degree and another 14% only supported the DNP reluctantly (chi- square
p < 0.001; see Figure 11.3). This presented an ethical issue of an individual faculty mem-
ber who was teaching in a program with which he or she philosophically disagreed or
did not support. This had significant implications, particularly when doctoral work-
load has to be distributed equally. We expressed concern that the merit of assigning fac-
ulty to teach courses or supervise DNP projects or practice dissertations (whatever the
final work product is called), might be questioned— especially when their motivations
to teach and advise these students may lack enthusiasm. In 2016, enthusiasm for the
DNP degree among doctoral faculty who taught DNP exclusively was at 68%, but when
combined with “moderately” (21%), that percentage rises rose to 89%. For faculty who
taught both DNP and PhD, the enthusiasm was reported at 79%.
In 2012, the question of resources indicated that there were differing points of view
between DNP and PhD faculty. Among PhD faculty, 38% believed that DNP programs
would negatively impact PhD resources, but among DNP faculty only 9% agreed. These
numbers remained essentially the same in the 2016 survey with 8% of DNP-only fac-
ulty and 37% PhD-only faculty picked that DNP “will” negatively impact current PhD
resources. In 2012, 31% of doctoral faculty who taught both in DNP and PhD programs
believed that DNP “will not” negatively impact current PhD resources, while in 2016, the
number increased slightly to 35% and we think this is perhaps a more reliable finding,
as these faculty have experience teaching in both programs and likely have the benefit
of watching this trend, over time. Sixty- five percent were either unclear or certain the
DNP has had a negative impact on their PhD program resources and whether or not this
perception or belief has been impacted by declining PhD enrollments is unknown. The
decline in higher education funds in the United States in the past several years is real
and many state- funded doctoral programs, particularly PhD/ research programs where
full- funded students are common (perhaps less common in nursing), may have impacted
these findings. Ketefian and Redman (2015) express this concern stating that not only
will the PhD and DNP programs compete for resources but will also have significant
implications for faculty workload and other areas as well. This question does need more
investigation and its impact on the discipline, if this is true, needs to be ascertained.
The professional growth and work satisfaction section of the survey indicated a
drop from 54% to 45% among doctoral nursing faculty who are very satisfied with their
current faculty position. When combined with those reporting being “moderately satis-
fied” (35%), the level of satisfaction rises to 80%, which is extremely high. This number
is very comparable to the 70% who are mostly optimistic about the future of doctoral
nursing education (vs. the 25% who are either ambivalent or pessimistic), which is amaz-
ingly the exact percentage (70%) who expressed optimism about doctoral nursing edu-
cation in 2012! When a separate analysis was done on 2016 survey between programs,
the percentage of those teaching in PhD programs who responded “very satisfied” was
56% and percentage of those teaching in DNP programs was 52%. For those teaching