1: THE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL PATH OF DOCTORAL NURSING EDUCATION ■ 19
The complete answer to the first question previously mentioned— how to attract
more nurses to doctoral study and to the educator role— is beyond the scope of this
chapter. There is, however, a protracted nursing faculty shortage that has now existed
for more than a decade and is predicted to persist (AACN, 1999, 2005a, 2015a; Aiken et
al., 2009). The reasons why the shortage is likely to continue include the following:
- A predicted surge in faculty retirements that will exceed predicted replace-
ments (AACN, 2015a; Smith Glasgow & Dreher, 2010) - Lack of competitive salaries for nursing professors versus what they can earn
in industry (Ingeno, 2013; Smith & Dreher, 2003) - Lack of adequate role modeling in undergraduate nursing education to foster
pursuing the doctorate and a teaching career (Potempa, Redman, & Anderson,
2008) - Perhaps even gender bias in the academy that disenfranchises nursing schools,
largely composed of women, from their full exercise of power, influence, and
benefit in many colleges and universities (Curtis, 2010; Smith & Dreher, 2003)
One example of the previously mentioned gender bias,^9 is the low comparative
research start- up packages reported for tenure- track nursing faculty versus start- up
packages for business, law, medicine, and engineering faculty (Valian, 2005). Although
Rudy and Grady (2005) reported that among 31 biological nurse scientists engaged
mostly in animal- model research (48% had formal postdoctoral training and all had
received previous National Institute of Nursing Research funding), their mean research
start- up package was for $50,000 (in the range from $2,000 to $105,000); this author has
heard numerous doctoral faculty at the annual AACN Doctoral Nursing Education
meeting complain about their comparative research start- up packages in their own
universities.^10 Furthermore, administrative stipends for nursing administrators pale in
comparison to stipends for faculty administrators from the disciplines mentioned pre-
viously and perhaps others (Kirkpatrick, 1994). Although Kirkpatrick in 1994 reported
stipends as low as $1,000 for the nursing department chair, this type of data admittedly
is hard to substantiate, because the university power structure that favors one discipline
(for whatever reason) over another has reason to keep these data hidden. Nevertheless,
this author (and others) has had multiple confirmations of this practice, and there is no
reason to believe that this inequity has been rectified in the past 15 years. It is also not
unusual for colleges or universities to internally cap permanent administrative promo-
tions to 10% of the base salary, thus exposing an internally imposed salary compression
that can generally be circumvented by an external candidate who may have more sal-
ary negotiation opportunities on the front end of the hire (University of South Florida,
2015). This critique of the “status of the nurse in the academy” is not meant to discour-
age readers from the professoriate or to academic nursing administrators, but to iden-
tify some of the challenges that the current generation and next generation of nursing
professors will face. A critical mass of DNP faculty educators in particular, whose own
entrance into the academy is going to spark a multitude of additional issues, may be
particularly vulnerable.
The second item, encouraging MSN- prepared faculty to pursue the doctorate, is
equally problematic. I am reminded of Melosh’s (1982) and Dracup and Bryan- Brown’s
(2005) critiques of the disenfranchisement of nurses in an earlier generation (and the
risk to current MSN- prepared APRNs), and of the current lack of flexible transitioning
to the next degree as the profession suddenly mandates a doctorate for all university
nursing professors (AACN, 2008). On the surface, this is a realistic expectation— that
nurses who teach in a university setting should possess a doctorate. But again, as a