506 ■ III: ROLE FUNCTIONS OF DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
■ ROLE AND PREPARATION OF NURSE EDUCATORS
The role and preparation of nurse educators may be one of the most contentious issues
in nursing education (DeNisco & Barker, 2016). In the landmark report, The Future of
Nursing: Leading Change, Advancing Health the Institute of Medicine calls to double
nurses holding a doctoral degree in an effort to expand the pool of diverse nurse fac-
ulty and researchers (IOM, 2011). The report’s other recommendations are in direct
alignment with the American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s (AACN’s) Essentials
of Doctoral Education for Advanced Nursing Practice (AACN, 2006) and has revolution-
ized the nursing education by recommending a curriculum to prepare a future work-
force, which will lead change and implement reform in our fragmented health care
delivery system. According to the NLN (2016), the nurse educator role requires spe-
cialized preparation and every nursing faculty member engaged in academia must be
prepared to implement that role successfully. Nurse educators remain the key resource
in preparing a nursing workforce that will provide quality care to respond to the health
care needs of demographically aging and ever increasing diverse population. As nurs-
ing is a practice discipline it makes sense that whether employed in an academic or
clinical setting the nurse educator must be a competent clinician. However, while being
a good clinician is essential, some would say it is not sufficient for the faculty role.
According to the AACN (2006), a DNP degree is not necessarily adequate preparation
for the role of a nurse educator yet neither is a nursing research doctorate. Both the
NLN and the AACN have suggested that advanced practice nursing faculty should
have didactic course work in curriculum design and evaluation and teaching meth-
odologies. Although the original intent of the DNP degree was not meant to prepare a
nursing education workforce it is clear they are filling that void and will continue to do
so. DNPs are serving as nursing faculty in associate, baccalaureate, master’s, and DNP
programs and are moving into administrative academic roles at a rapid pace. One of the
main questions relates to how academic institutions accommodate new DNP-prepared
faculty members as didactic nurse educators when they have only received clinical
preparation. In a cross-sectional descriptive study of 137 DNP program characteristics
it was found that only 11.7% of the programs offered nursing education electives (Udlis
& Mancuso, 2012). However, DNP programs that do offer education elective courses
or educational leadership options provide experienced master’s-prepared nurses with
formal preparation in educational theory, testing, evaluation, curriculum development,
and an educational practicum (Danzey et al., 2011). The DNP degree with a focus on
education embodies all aspects of the NLN Core Competencies for Nurse Educators
(NLN, 2005 ). DNP programs that accept post-master’s students with or without an
advanced practice nursing degree are frequently employed in a faculty or staff devel-
opment role or serve as clinical preceptors or mentors in their organizations. Another
causative factor to the confusion in clearly defining DNP curriculum and roles is that
many nursing faculty members designing and teaching in DNP programs have limited
understanding of evidence-based practice and educational pedagogy as they are often
rigorous researchers (Melynck, 2013).
■ SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR NURSING FACULTY AND ACADEMIC
ADMINISTRATORS IN NURSING
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has projected a large increase
in demand for nurses, from about 2.8 million full-time equivalents in 2012 to about