Seeking Advice about becoming a Nurse Educator

elkpark · Apr 17, 2008

1. Many do; some schools expect or require that of faculty, some don't. I don't see how you can justify not staying current with clinical practice, but there are still plenty of nursing faculty out there who haven't set foot in a clinical setting or laid hands on a real client in decades.

2. No one can give you a clear answer to that -- too many individual variables.

3. Sounds like your "3+" years of experience will include working part-time while you're in your MSN program, yes? Yes, you will be at a disadvantage (IMHO; someone else may come along here and tell you something different); some position postings I've seen specify a minimum of 2 years of (full-time) clinical practice (many specify more years, often five) but that's the bare minimum to be considered qualified -- there will be other candidates for those positions with much more clinical experience. Turn the question around -- as a nursing student, how much experience do you want your instructors to have? Do you want to be taught by someone fresh out of school, who is just a step or two ahead of where you are, or by seasoned, experience "pros"?

4. You're basically on the same academic schedule as the students, but that doesn't mean you don't have plenty of work to do during a lot of your "off" time (holidays, etc.). Teaching is one of those jobs that tends to expand to fill the available time -- it is definitely not a "9-5," "40 hours/week" job. As for having summers off, remember that that means you don't get paid for the summer.

5. Financial assistance depends on the policies of the individual institution. Most will, at least, work with you on scheduling, etc., to make it possible for you continue on. Some do offer financial assistance (can't really assume that will always be the case, though.)

6. Every school I've had personal experience with has required a doctorate (or, for a really strong candidate in other ways who is working on a doctorate) for tenure-track postiions. The people I've known in those positions expressed feeling really pressured and burdened by the school's requirements for research/publication/funding plus teaching responsibilities, for what that's worth.

7. This, again, is so personal and highly variable that I'm only going to comment on the very obvious "true-ism" that we all know -- nearly anyone teaching nursing could be making a lot more money practicing clinically.

8. Again, this is highly variable, esp. for new faculty. As one of my former program directors used to say cheerfully (when she was explaining to me that she needed me to teach something completely outside my sphere of expertise/experience), "Cross-training is the heart of nursing education!!" :chuckle New faculty members, until they've built up some seniority in a department, often get the "left-over" assignments and program directors have to cover all the necessary teaching assignments with someone (and I sympathize with that dilemma -- one of the many reasons I'd never want an administrative position). Some program directors will work v. hard to accommodate your preferences and come up with reasonable compromises; some take the "a nurse is a nurse is a nurse" approach and just tell you what your assignment is; deal with it. And teaching assignments frequently vary from semester to semester -- you put a great deal of time and effort into developing a course one semester, look forward to having all that already done "the next time," and the next semester you're doing something different and starting from scratch on entirely different courses ... I would guess that it would be near impossible to find a program that would guarantee you you'd only be teaching, for example, psych, and, even if you did, they would probably go back on that "guarantee" at some point.

I'm not trying to discourage you, just be honest about what I've seen and experienced in nursing education over quite a few years, but keep in mind how much talk you hear about the serious shortage of nursing educators -- there are good reasons why so few nurses want to teach! :rolleyes:

HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD · Apr 17, 2008

WELCOME!!!! I am so glad that you are heading down the educator pathway. I have been a 'workplace' nurse educator for 20+ years and love it more every day.

My advice - in your graduate studies, make sure you obtain formal education about the discipline of education. My MSN was in Critical Care with a focus on Education -- but I don't feel that it really offered enough on Edu. I went on to EdD to fill in the gaps.

Maybe you should consider moving into a clinical educator role for a few years before making the leap into academia. Based on my own experience, it is a challenging, fast-paced and ever-changing world. NEVER Boring. Salaries are frequently better than academic positions - I know mine is.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if I can provide any additional info.