When our aging nurse faculty workforce soon begins to retire en masse, who will be there to replace them to teach the next generation of nurses? Where are the younger educators who should be waiting in the wings? What ideas do you have to avert a disastrous nurse faculty shortage and to attract younger nurses into the wonderful career of nursing education? Nurses Announcements Archive Article
The average age of academic nurse educators in the U.S. is 55.5 years. Meanwhile, the average age at which nurse faculty members retire is 62.5 years. It is not surprising, therefore, that at least 40% of currently-practicing nursing instructors are projected to retire within the next 10 years. When these aging faculty soon retire en masse, who will be there to replace them to teach the next generation of nurses? Where are the younger educators who should be waiting in the wings and coming up through the ranks of academia?
It certainly doesn't help matters that the average annual salary of nurse educators is $65,000, while the academic preparation necessary for this teaching specialty is rigorous, time-consuming, and expensive to obtain. The typical pay of nurse faculty lags significantly behind the pay of clinical, administrative, and advance practice nurses. For example, staff registered nurses within hospital settings average $40,000 to $79,000, clinical nurse educators average $76,000, nurse practitioners average $89,000, certified nurse midwives average $91,000, certified registered nurse anesthetists average $156,000, and nurse executives average $161,000 yearly. It is therefore understandably difficult to recruit promising young nurses into the nursing education field.
What are some strategies that nurse faculty can use to attract younger nurses into nursing education?
We are witnessing a perfect storm brewing in nursing academia with impending mass faculty vacancies. This is due to a combination of elements: a rapidly aging nurse educator workforce who will soon be retiring, relatively poor pay, and a dearth of young nursing instructors in the "pipes" to replace them. What ideas do you have to avert a disastrous nurse faculty shortage and to attract younger nurses into the wonderful career of nursing education?
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