The Shorthorn - Program aims to fill potential educator void

Program aims to fill potential educator void

Written by Abigail Howlett

Tuesday, 29 July 2008 09:14 PM

One university professor hopes to recruit students to eventually fill her shoes.

Wendy Barr, who was recently appointed MSN nursing educator program director, has been teaching at the university for 23 years and plans to train students to teach other nurses as part of the new Nursing Educator Master’s Program.

“It is estimated that 70 percent of nursing faculty will be eligible to retire [in the next couple of years],” she said. “We are suffering a severe shortage of nurse educators. We recognize that we have a great need to prepare nurses to teach.”

Before the new master’s program, there was an Educator Certificate Program. Nursing Dean Elizabeth Poster asked a task force to tailor the previous courses to fit the new degree plan, she said.

“We are not having to offer a lot of new classes because we have revised four courses, which we have already offered in the past for our certificate program,” Barr said. “We are going to be offering, ultimately, three new classes.”

Nursing professor Mary Lou Bond led the task force that looked into starting a Nursing Educator’s Master’s program. Using national guidelines, the committee revamped its existing courses for educators and created a master’s program.

“We looked at the national competencies – what is expected for a nurse educator,” she said. “Our job was to develop and get approval for the curriculum for the program. The task force, after it developed each of the courses, presented it to the Graduate Studies Committee.”

Mary Schira, Nursing Master’s Program associate dean, said the program is structured similar to the other master’s programs with classroom and clinical experience required.

“The final part is a teaching practicum,” she said. “As part of that practicum they will work with experienced educators.”

Barr said she sees her role as director as the next step in her career and hopes to inspire a new generation of nurses to teach.

“As a nurse at a bedside, you are impacting two or so patients at a time,” she said. “As an educator, when I was standing before many students at a time, I could impact many patients.”

To enter the program, students must have a couple of years working in a clinical environment, she said.

“We are hoping to attract people to come back and share their enthusiasm for nursing,” Barr said. “We ask that people have two years of clinical experience before they take classes. It would be difficult for anyone who didn’t have experience to go out and teach students how to teach when they haven’t had that experience for themselves.”

Barr plans to recruit students and professors into the program next semester.

“Ultimately, our goal is to improve the health care of the population in Texas and the United States,” she said. “We all hear the statistics of the students that are qualified to be in the program, but we don’t have enough faculty to teach them.”

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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 24 September 2008 03:39 PM )

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