Statewide Project to Prepare Nurse Educators

College of Nursing

Office of Nursing Research

Statewide Project to Prepare Nurse Educators

Project Director: Marge Hegge, RN, MS, EdD
          Sponsor: HRSA Division of Nursing
          Project Period: 2005-2008
          Collaborating Institutions and Faculty Members:

                    Marge Hegge: Project Director
                    Sandra Bunkers: Project Coordinator
                    Lois Tschetter: Faculty

Thomas Stenvig: Cultural Competency advisor and faculty
Gloria Craig: Technology Advisor and Faculty

The program is designed to assist students in obtaining education and training to promote career advancement, and to increase enrollment in graduate programs for nurse education roles. Specifically, the purpose of this project is to promote career advancement of baccalaureate RNs to earn master’s degrees to qualify to teach in the state’s 12 nursing education programs. All 12 schools need qualified faculty to maintain program integrity due to a wave of expected retirements and under-qualified faculty.

Other objectives are to: (a) prepare 24 masters prepared nurse educators with academic and practical skills to replenish retiring faculty in all the states nursing schools, including cultural competence and distance education; (b) provide formal mentoring for nurses preparing for faculty roles, and (c) showcase best practices through new ideas projects at each of the SD nursing programs.

The 12 nursing program directors have worked collaboratively to collect data to demonstrate need and develop strategies to meet the need for nurse educators. An educational articulate task force worked for 7 years to arrive at consensus around differentiated competencies for all levels of nurses. This competency document has facilitated articulation agreements between the programs for ease of progression from one level of nursing to the next.

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