The Work Life of Nurse Faculty

As resources continue to shrink and the public calls for nursing program productivity and demonstrable outcomes mount, there is an urgent need to better understand the work life of today's faculty.  The aim of this study was to examine factors associated with the work life of nursing faculty in the United States and how those factors affect the faculty’s intent to become, stay, or consider leaving the role. Methods: A 48-item Nurse Faculty Work Life Survey measured faculty demographics, perceived teaching expertise, workload, and the influences on becoming, staying, or leaving the faculty role. The online survey was distributed to U.S., NLN-AC and CCNE accredited nursing programs’ directors/deans, which requested them to forward the e-mail survey to their nursing faculty. Results: Eight hundred and eight useable surveys were returned. Descriptive and inferential statistics, including multiple-regression and structural equation modeling (SEM) were used to analyze the data. Preliminary results suggest that faculty’s perceptions of the current direction and the characteristics of the academic organization, productivity, teaching expertise, and future career direction significantly predicted nursing faculty’s intentions to become, stay, or leave the faculty role. Perceived teaching expertise was the strongest predictor. Conclusions: The study ‘s results have relevance for nurses in and out of academe’. Specific recommendations for nurses to consider when seeking faculty positions relate to the faculty’s perceptions of a supportive work environment. Another factor is to what extent the academic administrator builds an attractive program for new faculty, while enhancing the desire of current faculty to stay.