508 ■ III: ROLE FUNCTIONS OF DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
talented clinicians, executive leaders, managers, and educators the advanced practice
experiences, which will deepen their critical thinking and analytic skills and widen their
network of colleagues in leadership roles. This in turn will create a ready workforce not
only on the service side but also on the academic side of nursing. With a terminal DNP
degree the nurse educator will have the essential skill set to prepare a future nursing
workforce who will be better able to respond to a changing patient population, lead
interprofessional teams, and understand organizational systems.
SHORTAGE OF ACADEMIC LEADERS
One of the four key messages in the leading-edge document the Future of Nursing:
Leading Change, Advancing Health (IOM, 2011) is the recommendation for strong lead-
ership development in nursing and infusing this content into nursing curriculum.
Although many academic leaders have had a 5- to 10-year plan of careful stepwise career
planning many “fall into their roles” and are ill prepared to take the leap from faculty to
“chair.” In a recent search on the “Higher Education” employment website, there were
1,232 vacant full-time nursing faculty positions at 4-year institutions. In a related search
for administrative academic positions in nursing, there were 408 postings for deans and
associate deans across the country. The Indeed job search engine entering the key search
term “nursing dean” came up with 1,161 administrator positions in the United States
and 459 were deans or associate dean positions.
Role Preparation
According to Glasgow, Weinstock, Lachman, Suplee, and Dreher (2009) newly promoted
academic administrators in higher education had little or no previous leadership expe-
rience. Very often junior faculty are promoted to the chair role as they are still working
on their scholarship timeline and have may find it difficult to “do it all.” According to
Greene and Ridenour (2004) academic institutions have promoted their most senior fac-
ulty to the deanship role with more than 60% having been department chairs with little
preparation for the transition. Compounding matters, new administrators may be faced
with a lack of familiarity with the academic hierarchy in their institutions while at the
same time trying to secure and mentor new nursing faculty, balancing a budget, and
fund-raising at the time this country is facing faculty vacancies and clinical site short-
ages at an alarming rate. Undoubtedly, it takes knowledge, skills, and personal aware-
ness to be a successful academic leader. It is safe to say that the best leaders are those
who have knowledge of clinical nursing practice and as well as experience acquired in
a nursing faculty role. There is little written about the DNP-prepared faculty members
assuming leadership roles in academia. Many DNP faculty members come to their roles
with established records as nurse educators, clinical specialists, nurse administrators,
and expert practitioners. It seems that the “ideal” academic administrator would pos-
sess all of these traits and if not all a way to acquire skills that are inherent in each role.
Wolverton, Gmelch, Montez, and Nies (2001) identified analytical competence, interper-
sonal competence, and emotional intelligence as the primary skills needed to assume a
role such as an academic dean. One can argue that analytical competence can be gained
from advancing one’s education whether prepared as a PhD or DNP. In the clinical
setting the DNP-prepared administrator is faced with a barrage of complex patient
and systems issues that have honed their analytical skills and problem- solving abil-
ity. Interpersonal competence and emotional intelligence are skills that can be acquired
through leadership development programs and mentoring; however, they are often