TOO FEW ON FACULTIES
AMID NURSING SHORTAGE, SCHOOLS TURNING AWAY STUDENTS

The Hartford Courant

Published: Thursday, August 26, 2004 Edition: STATEWIDE
Page: E1 Type:
Section: BUSINESS Source: From Wire And Staff Reports
An Associated Press report is included in this story.

At nursing schools from Connecticut to California, a surge of applicants who could ease the nation's worsening shortage of nurses are being turned away because many schools can't find enough qualified professors.

That shortfall is driven by health-care jobs that offer better pay and by fewer nurses pursuing the Ph.D. required for full-time, tenured teaching positions.

And, just as with the nursing workforce, the faculty is graying. A wave of retirements is expected in about a decade when more care will be needed for aging baby boomers.

At the Yale School of Nursing in New Haven, retirements are coming fast, and there aren't enough replacements in the pipeline, officials said.

"The next couple of years, the retirements are just going to escalate and we are going to be losing more faculty than we are going to be able to replace,'' said Katherine Jones, a professor of nursing and the incoming interim dean of Yale's school.

She said nurses typically start doctoral studies later in their careers -- in their 40s and 50s -- because they practice in clinical settings before pursuing advanced degrees.

That doesn't leave a lot of time to set up and pursue an academic research career, and thus there are fewer faculty available to teach full time, especially at higher academic levels.

Without enough instructors, "we have to turn students away and that exacerbates the nursing shortage,'' said Carol Picard, president-elect of the Honor Society of Nursing.

While enrollments in graduate programs have just begun to edge up, that's not keeping pace with retirements and professors leaving for higher-paying health-care jobs.

Those higher-paying jobs are a problem for nursing schools across the nation, including the University of Hartford's, which has a master's program aimed specifically at training nursing faculty.

"One of the challenges we have is that faculty salaries don't compete well over time with salaries that nurses in leadership positions in clinical practices can have,'' said Mary Beth Mathews, chairman of the nursing department at the University of Hartford's College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions.

"A nurse leader in a hospital may be willing to teach part time, but not full time because we can't match the salaries,'' she said.

Starting salaries vary widely depending on the school and the region of the country. But starting assistant professor positions pay about $40,000, while a starting nurse at a hospital can make as much as $60,000, including a signing bonus.

Some top-level, full professors make more than $100,000, nursing educators said.

The nursing society said about 7 percent of the 10,200 full-time faculty positions at the 690 U.S. bachelor's and graduate nursing programs are vacant. In addition, 122 of those schools need more instructors; they turned away nearly 18,000 student applicants last year for lack of faculty and, in some cases, classroom space.

Those figures don't include two-year degree and hospital-based diploma programs, although their faculty vacancy rates are only about half as high, according to the National League for Nursing, which offers grants and runs programs to develop more faculty.

Doctoral programs are offered at only 88 U.S. nursing schools -- Yale and the University of Connecticut among them -- with about 3,500 students enrolled in 2003-04, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Only 419 nurses graduated with doctorates this spring, down 10 percent from 2003.

"I'm in dire straits in terms of faculty right now,'' said Julie Bliss, chairwoman of the Department of Nursing at William Paterson University in New Jersey.

Two of her 15 full-time tenured faculty resigned barely a month before the fall term, she said. They're headed to health-care jobs paying more than $80,000 a year, about $30,000 more than she can offer.

"They can't pay their mortgages on what we're paying,'' Bliss said.

Another two professors are on long-term sick leave, forcing Bliss to rely on low-paid part-timers without doctoral degrees while student demand skyrockets.

More than 1,200 students applied for 100 spots in her four-year bachelor's program this fall, up from 351 in 1999. To compensate, Bliss is cutting the number of sections of some courses, boosting some lecture classes from fewer than 30 students to as many as 70.

Meanwhile, the school's graduate program has fewer students, Bliss said, meaning less stress now but fewer educators later.

Not all schools are having such trouble, possibly because they are in places with a lower cost of living and less-mobile work force.

Julie Novak, professor and head of the Purdue School of Nursing in West Lafayette, Ind., has increased full-time faculty in the bachelor's degree program from 40 to 48 since the 2000-01 school year, as each entering class expanded, from 100 students in 2000 to 167 this fall.

"We have not had any difficulty,'' Novak said. "We brought in nine new faculty this year,'' including three who replaced retirees.

She also has persuaded retirees to continue teaching part-time. Novak believes low cost of living and proximity to Indianapolis and Chicago help her with recruiting, and other factors may give her an edge over four competitive nursing schools within an hour of Purdue.