Nursing educators- salaries

Specialties Educators

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What are current salaries for new MSN graduates who want to teach in a hospital nursing school or community college program ?

Also how are part time clinical instructors paid ? Hourly ? Average wages ?

Specializes in Nursing Education.

Hello,

If you are hired as a part-time clinical assistant professor, what would be a pay schedule? Do you get 8-9 checks per semester? What about summer time when you don't teach? I'm wondering how this non-teaching downtime affects benefits (medical/dental/retirement).

J

Hi! All,

I am a nursing instructor for a small LPN program in NY state in danger of closing soon. We have been unable to hire additional instructors and have 11 and 12 students in our clinical groups. I work with one other teacher, and a program coordinator. I have an ADN and my office mate, BSN, is in graduate school. We both are only per diem time sheet employees and both make $22/hr. I have been teaching for 13 years, the other teacher since last Nov. For the past 8 years, after a significant cut in pay and loss of my benefit package, including my health insurance because of a serious drop in student enrollment, I have earned an annual raise of $0.25. I con't to teach because I truly loved my job. We struggled financially and barely managed to budget for health insurance we paid out of pocket. It broke my heart to know that I would not be able to con't to pay for teacher certification courses AND a BSN. Course work for one requirement was not transferrable into the other. I would never be able to afford to pay back the amount of student loan money I would need, and my children's college education had to be the priority. I reached a crisis point last April. I was earning $19.75/hr, and our unpaid work load had grown to unbearable proportions. Our class size had steadily increased from @18 to 34, and as you all know, our students are increasingly needy and the healthcare workplace increasingly dangerous. I grew increasingly resentful at trying to fit 20 hours of work into 10 hours of pay. We were only paid for our in front of the class teaching time. If a 6 hour class was on the calendar, that teacher only earned 6 hours of pay. We had never been paid to read the unit chapters, write a lesson plan, format a test, build a syllabus with homework and then correct the tests. I struggled to do all that and more, have faculty meetings over our lunch, be available to students, yes, at times, almost 24/7, and convey, at the same time, how much I truly want my students to love their job and be proud to be the best nurses they can be. I am ready to give up. Last April, our local papers adverstised for per diem LPNs at a starting wage of $19.97/hr. Yes, $0.22 more per hour than I made to teach those nurses. So, in order for us to commit to this school year, we were given a verbal contract to put our prep time on our time sheet, and a $2/hr raise. To date, we have been paid for those extra hours. However, effective immediately, we will no longer be allowed to put any but calendar hours on our time sheets. Our program coordinator was told by her boss that she was not to submit any time sheets with time that was not on the school calendar, she even held last weeks time sheets back and requested we take the extra hours off. We refused to do so, and waited for two weeks unsure if we would get a paycheck. We have both refused to take any more work home. It is proving completely impossible for us to meet even the student's minimum course work requirements and we are doing our class a terrible disservice. Many of our textbooks are new, and the need for new tests and lesson plans has made a bad situation worse. I can, in good conscience, no longer do a good job for my students, and I will no longer be teaching any classes. We get paid 7 hours for a 7 hour clinical day, and I have committed to that for the rest of this year. I would be grateful for any advice anyone could give. Many of the students said they are writing letters, and I am even wondering if I have any legel recourse. So many of our nursing programs are in the same bad situation. Thanks for your support, sue.

Well, hello again you-all! I'm checking back in to let you know how my job application went.

I didn't get it. Was bummed. What can you do with a PhD when the education community doesn't want you? So I starred in my own little pitty party for a while.

Then I remembered, Hey! I really was a nurse once upon a time. I can still do that.

OK: Here's the deal. Instead of pulling down $45K/year as an assistant professor scratching and clawing my way to get tenure, I'm making $85K. (That's if you allow for two full weeks of vacation and don't count ANY overtime, of which there's plenty, if I want to do it.) I'm doing a type of nursing I've never done before (Neuro) and loving learning a new field. Incredibly engaged intellectually.

BUT... You wanta hear the really cool part????

I'm teaching like crazy. We have all these students on our unit and there's always one following me around. The other day I showed them how understanding pharmacokinetics can help determine which drugs have to be given ON TIME, and which of your 9 AM meds can be given anytime before noon (which I consider a moral victory, given the load of meds I have to give each morning.) You know, they suddenly look at drug half-lives with a whole new appreciation! And we had a renal failure patient on anti-convulants. I got to have them look up absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of the drugs. Whoa! You could see the little wheels turning in their heads.

Then the other day, we had a lady desat down to 88 or 89. I told the nurslings this was not a really good thing, and that we'd really like her to be comfortably above 90. This, in turn led to a discussion of the oxy-hemoglobin dissociation curve.

Then we had a snotty, manipulative pseudoseizure (excuse me the polite term nowadays is "non-epileptic event") patient who was verbally abusing the student. I got to step in, set some structure in the pt's care and get his cooperation. That was the start of a really good teaching-learning discussion.

I could go on and on. Bottom line is that I am NO threat to these students since I don't give them their grades. They can freely tell me what they are vague on without fearing I'll ding them. AND at most I have two at a time instead of being spread out between 8 students on several units. I get to be there for all those important "teachable moments".

How cool is that!

Once I got my ego out of the way... really good things happened. And lucrative ones at that!!!!

Oh, and the really good part is I don't have any students in my office crying about their grades (Sniff, sniff... "But Dr. Tulip. I've NEVER made a C in my whole life! Whaaaaa!)

Y'all take it for what it's worth. It's working great for me.

(And, BTW: I'm going to propose a small research project with our clinical nurse educator. We might get it published. Who knows????) Scholarship does NOT end at the door of the school of nursing.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.
Well, hello again you-all! I'm checking back in to let you know how my job application went.

I didn't get it. Was bummed. What can you do with a PhD when the education community doesn't want you? So I starred in my own little pitty party for a while.

Then I remembered, Hey! I really was a nurse once upon a time. I can still do that.

OK: Here's the deal. Instead of pulling down $45K/year as an assistant professor scratching and clawing my way to get tenure, I'm making $85K. (That's if you allow for two full weeks of vacation and don't count ANY overtime, of which there's plenty, if I want to do it.) I'm doing a type of nursing I've never done before (Neuro) and loving learning a new field. Incredibly engaged intellectually.

BUT... You wanta hear the really cool part????

I'm teaching like crazy. ....{SNIP}

Y'all take it for what it's worth. It's working great for me.

(And, BTW: I'm going to propose a small research project with our clinical nurse educator. We might get it published. Who knows????) Scholarship does NOT end at the door of the school of nursing.

I smiled at your post 1tulip. When I finished my PhD about 10 years ago, I also discovered that I wasn't a good fit for what schools were looking for at the time. My clinical background was neonatal and I was not an NNP. So, like you, I went back to the hospital and took a job doing neonatal ICU staff development.

Since then, I have been out site coordinator for a research project, published a book chapter on staff development roles, and presented at a major conference -- all while making a lot more money than I ever would have made as a faculty member. I've also done lots of teaching (both in neonatal and in an assortment of odd topics that interest me) and now focus on hospital-wide projects related to the recruitment, utilization, and retention of our nursing staff. In recent years, I have established (and now run) a nursing student extern program and a nursing scholarship.

In short ... as a doctorally prepared nurse working for a hospital, I have had a much better career than I probably would have had teaching in a school of nursing. To top it off, I have recently been teaching a course in a local schools RN-BSN program -- an experience I have really enjoyed. That particular student group values my hospital experience and appreciates the fact that while I have a PhD and can relate to the scholarly theory stuff that I teach, I also have my feet firmly planted in the "real world" of everyday practice. I also like the teaching gig because it is only 1 course at a time -- and as an adjunct faculty member, I don't have to deal with the school politics, etc. I don't have to teach any courses I don't want to teach and I don't have to put up with much cr** that I don't want to put up with.

My long term plan is to do both jobs for a couple of years (though I hope to renegotiate it as a joint appointment at some point) and then ease into retirement in a few years by becoming a part time faculty member.

Like you, I was VERY disappointed when I graduated with my PhD at finding that I was did not fit the tradition faculty member track. However, I seem to be having the last laugh. :specs:

Please keep me posted on how your career is going. I'll look for future posts here on allnurses.com.

llg

Specializes in OB, NP, Nurse Educator.

Wilburs Mom - It sounds like to me that you are between a rock and a hard place - a difficult place to be. You should be paid for the work you do. Period. In Kentucky the BON dictates how many students you can take to clinical. Is your program SACS accredited? They mandate how many hours you can work (lecture vs clinical time). To be in compliance my lecture hours had to be cut back alot - which meant hiring another person. As far as lesson plans, tests, and grading we have prep time built into the schedule, but I occasionally do things at home (I graded 15 care plans today). I think that you are being used by your employer. If the student enrollment picked up then some of that money should be channeled over to the people who actually do the teaching.

Hi! Puggymae,

Thanks for the support, I am actually trying to work up the courage to talk to someone at the NYS Dept. of Labor, or go over to the NYS nurses thread and seek some nurse/lawyer advice. I think there are alot of nurses out there somewhere who went on to law school. I am going to look for BON guidelines about our 11 and 12 students in clinical, but when this issue was talked about before, I think someone found that the language didn't specify 10 as we have believed for years, but some legelese that said the student to instructor ration has to be adequate and safe..... gee, I wonder why we can't hire one. And this issue has really negatively impacted a formerly good working relationship with my boss. I think she is really, really, angry at me, since I spoke up to her, her boss, and when I felt it the right thing to do, our students. Several said they had written letters of complaint, but after the meeting with our BOCES boss, if his professionalism is anything to go by, I don't have much hope for a positive outcome. What is SACS accreditation? Thanks much for your help. sue.

It seems most people are talking about Nurse Educator roles in the colleges and universities. Does anyone know what an MSN Nurse Educator would earn in the hospital setting?

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.
It seems most people are talking about Nurse Educator roles in the colleges and universities. Does anyone know what an MSN Nurse Educator would earn in the hospital setting?

Of course it varies greatly from region to region -- consistent with the cost of living. But I have been in Staff Development for many years in many different regions. Current salaries run in the range of 50K - 90K, depending on the exact locale and years of experience. (In the biggest cities with the highest cost of living, they can go above 100K.)

the dates are old on these blogs- any new salary ranges for instructors in the clinical area?

txs g

Specializes in Psych, education.
Of course it varies greatly from region to region -- consistent with the cost of living. But I have been in Staff Development for many years in many different regions. Current salaries run in the range of 50K - 90K, depending on the exact locale and years of experience. (In the biggest cities with the highest cost of living, they can go above 100K.)

This has been my experience as well. One can make much more money as a clinical educator in a hospital than in the academic setting, and with a MSN compared to a PhD. Like Vicky said initially, this is shameful. But as long as nurses are willing to work for less, nothing will change.

Specializes in Nursing Professional Development.
This has been my experience as well. One can make much more money as a clinical educator in a hospital than in the academic setting, and with a MSN compared to a PhD. Like Vicky said initially, this is shameful. But as long as nurses are willing to work for less, nothing will change.

Yes, I've always wondered why more nurses don't choose Staff Development careers. The pay is generally better than academia -- and you generally work more attractive schedules, too.

Specializes in Behavioral Health, Show Biz.
It seems most people are talking about Nurse Educator roles in the colleges and universities. Does anyone know what an MSN Nurse Educator would earn in the hospital setting?

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According to my colleagues, $60,000 annually but some hospitals will offer $50.000.

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