- Email: [email protected]
Establishing a clinical track for faculty—feat or folly?
Professional Practice Establishing a Clinical Track for Faculty Feat or Folly? S ONE W]-IO consistently has touted the necessity of practice within the nursing academic environment, I find that I am now coming face to face 'with the realities of implementing a clinical track within a research university. It is in working through the details of implementation that we are forced to grapple with the feat or folly of establishing a clinical track for faculty. It is easy to understand how we got to where we are. The shift of nursing education from hospitals to universities resulted in more attention to academics, specifically teaching and scholarship, and many of us let go of our practice perspective. Because graduate education at the master's level has almost exclusively returned to a focus on advanced practice, we find ourselves again in need of faculty who are clinically focused and expert practitioners in their own right. Moreover, the explosion of numbers of and enrollment in nurse practitioner programs has required that we have certified nurse practitioner faculty. To maintain that certification, these faculty members must practice. Schools also find attractive revenue generation opportunities provided by those clinically competent nurse practitioner faculty members. These revenues provide incentives for these faculty to remain in academe and additional revenues for the school as well. With all of this said, getting both deans and faculty to agree that a clinical track would be beneficial to the faculty and the school is not difficult; working out the details of the implementation plan is. First there is the issue of "How much is enough?" In other words, what proportion of the faculty can be on a clinical track and the school still accomplish its research mission within the larger university? In looking at the composition of our nursing faculties, there are those faculty members who are doctorally prepared and those who are master's prepared, many of whom are engaged in doctoral study. If the clinical track is limited to master's-prepared faculty members, there is the potential for a two-tiered system, with those in the clinical track relegated to second class status. If the clinical track includes or is even limited to those faculty members with a terminal
SaRA E. BARGER, DPA, RN, FAAN Dean and Professor Capstone Collegeof Nursing The University ofAlabarna Box 870358 Tuscaloosa,AL 35487-0358 Copyright © 1999 by W.B. Saunders Company 8755-7223/99/1502-0004510.00/0
degree, then the number of remaining faculty to accomplish the research mission is significantly diminished. To dispel the perception of a two-class system, some schools limit their clinical track to those faculty members with a terminal degree. If both tenure-track and clinicaltrack faculty members are doctorally prepared, then the question of a scholarship requirement for those on clinical track must be addressed. It might be expected that scholarship for clinical track faculty would be practice based, focusing on issues of clinical practice instead of clinical research. When faculty members are on a clinical track, are their service responsibilities off-loaded? If there is a reduction in committee work for those on clinical track because of their allotted time for practice, then these committee assignments will require an additional work load for either tenured and tenure-track faculty or contract faculty. This also could result in a power shift within faculty governance. Because many of those seeking clinical-track appointments are likely to be teaching in our graduate nurse practitioner programs, appointments to the graduate faculty within the larger university also are affected. Graduate faculty appointments generally carry an expectation of research and scholarly productivity; thus, it is possible and even probable that those on clinical tracks would not meet the eligibility criteria for appointment to membership in the university's graduate faculty. This may seem unimportant to some until these graduate faculty committees make decisions that impact our nursing graduate programs. As we plan the implementation of a clinical track, we also must determine the relationship of the clinical track to our existing faculty practice plans. These plans are usually predicated on faculty members receiving additional financial incentives above their base salaries to practice. If these base salaries are the same as those of tenure-track faculty, then the incentives provided through the practice plan will result in clinical-track salaries far above those of tenuretrack faculty. If instead clinical-track faculty members have base salaries below those of tenure track faculty, then many will claim we are perpetuating a two-class system. Finally, there is the issue of the appropriate length of a clinical-track contract. Multiyear contracts are usually desired by clinical faculty and provide a certain stability in the faculty. However, it will be important to assure that clinical excellence is maintained throughout the contract period. Although this exploration of issues is not intended to be exhaustive, it does provide a sampling of the complex issues faced by university-based nursing programs attempting to implement a clinical track. Will all programs resolve these issues in the same way? Absolutely not! What is important is that we create environments that work for all our faculty members in order to tap the best in each of them.
JournalofProfessionalNursing, Vo115, No 2 (March-April), 1999: p 71
71
SaRA E. BARGER, DPA, RN, FAAN Dean and Professor Capstone Collegeof Nursing The University ofAlabarna Box 870358 Tuscaloosa,AL 35487-0358 Copyright © 1999 by W.B. Saunders Company 8755-7223/99/1502-0004510.00/0
degree, then the number of remaining faculty to accomplish the research mission is significantly diminished. To dispel the perception of a two-class system, some schools limit their clinical track to those faculty members with a terminal degree. If both tenure-track and clinicaltrack faculty members are doctorally prepared, then the question of a scholarship requirement for those on clinical track must be addressed. It might be expected that scholarship for clinical track faculty would be practice based, focusing on issues of clinical practice instead of clinical research. When faculty members are on a clinical track, are their service responsibilities off-loaded? If there is a reduction in committee work for those on clinical track because of their allotted time for practice, then these committee assignments will require an additional work load for either tenured and tenure-track faculty or contract faculty. This also could result in a power shift within faculty governance. Because many of those seeking clinical-track appointments are likely to be teaching in our graduate nurse practitioner programs, appointments to the graduate faculty within the larger university also are affected. Graduate faculty appointments generally carry an expectation of research and scholarly productivity; thus, it is possible and even probable that those on clinical tracks would not meet the eligibility criteria for appointment to membership in the university's graduate faculty. This may seem unimportant to some until these graduate faculty committees make decisions that impact our nursing graduate programs. As we plan the implementation of a clinical track, we also must determine the relationship of the clinical track to our existing faculty practice plans. These plans are usually predicated on faculty members receiving additional financial incentives above their base salaries to practice. If these base salaries are the same as those of tenure-track faculty, then the incentives provided through the practice plan will result in clinical-track salaries far above those of tenuretrack faculty. If instead clinical-track faculty members have base salaries below those of tenure track faculty, then many will claim we are perpetuating a two-class system. Finally, there is the issue of the appropriate length of a clinical-track contract. Multiyear contracts are usually desired by clinical faculty and provide a certain stability in the faculty. However, it will be important to assure that clinical excellence is maintained throughout the contract period. Although this exploration of issues is not intended to be exhaustive, it does provide a sampling of the complex issues faced by university-based nursing programs attempting to implement a clinical track. Will all programs resolve these issues in the same way? Absolutely not! What is important is that we create environments that work for all our faculty members in order to tap the best in each of them.
JournalofProfessionalNursing, Vo115, No 2 (March-April), 1999: p 71
71