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Employer Quotes

The quotes below are from employers in this industry: Health Care

They are talking about this topic: Educational Partnerships

 

The quotes below are about this issue:
Because there is a concern about a nursing faculty shortage, respondents suggest that MnSCU target nursing students with an aptitude for teaching in order to recruit them into nursing education. They also suggest that faculty divide their time between working in the field and teaching.

Employer Quote Region
"Employer 1: The other thing—and our educator friends could probably speak to this more specifically—aren't the nursing instructors all retiring?

Employer 2: Yes. Oh, yes. I think the average age is 59.

Employer: Yeah, and so this is going to be huge. This is really going to affect our supply of all of our nurses in the next 10 years."
Metro
"I take people to visit the sites, to see what those labs look like today, to see the technology that the students are working towards. Not that they can't mirror some of that, but I do think just having a sense of what it feels and looks like today could give them a sense of how to go back and build some training...

Question: When you say 'they,' are you referring to the educators or to the students? Employer: The educators.

Question: So, have the educators come and see your place?

Employer: Yes, exactly. A nice thing is just to come and show—for me, I can learn a lot if I see something. I can pick up on a lot of things that maybe I wouldn't be able to communicate just sitting in a meeting. So, I think it's just having a sense of what that day looks like. What are the stressors? What are the troubleshooting skills that we're looking for? You know, coming and listening to a physician's call, and you've got to have several things go through your head: What are they asking you? What should I do? What are my next steps? How am I going to get this resolved? You can't put everything in a procedure, and you can't teach everything in school. But I think it's just that sense because students and new grads will make mistakes, and we need to anticipate that. But sometimes, I think, if they see those expectations, maybe they can sort of set them up for what that job will really be like there."
Metro
"Employer 1: It gives them an opportunity to think differently, too. For example, if there's someone in a health care organization that wants to be able to teach for a couple of years, how can we have policies that would allow them to not have a break in their benefits so they can return back to their employer? Those kinds of fundamental things. We have to think differently. Maybe someone wants to go teach for two years, but he or she doesn't want to leave their health insurance plan. And so it's that thought process of, 'How do you take the knowledge that everyday folks have and allow them to do that knowledge transfer from a broader standpoint?' So, we need to look at what gets in the way of that—if it's a salary issue or those kinds of things—and decide how we can make that happen. It's thinking differently about that kind of stuff. There's a lot of talent in this room alone.

Employer 2: It's worth the investment, for sure."
Metro
"We're lucky that a lot of our clinical instructors are instructors, but they also are staff nurses. So, that's been a positive thing. And then we have—on different councils of the hospital—we have faculty that sit on nursing councils and research and professional practice, policy and procedure. So, we have that combination. I think what would really be beneficial would be to, at some point, have a role where half of the faculty's salary comes from industry and half of it comes from the college. I think that would really be nice to have that partnership. There are all kinds of issues that get wrapped around that." Northwest
"Leadership and faculty." Northwest
"A lot of people aren't drawn to it, 'Oh, boy, I want to be an educator! I want to be a researcher!' To tell the truth, educators don't tend to make as much. And if you don't find satisfaction in whatever you're doing, if you aren't called to it as a vocation, then where is this passion or commitment going to come from?" Northwest
"So, we need people to educate the LPNs that we need now and the RNs that we are going to need as our aging population continues to get older and live longer and need more health care. So, one of the things MnSCU could do would be—some of these people that are going into RN programs may naturally have an aptitude for teaching—and those people should be directed into those areas. So, again, having the demographics and looking at what those needs are going to be. That's a huge one. If you have no one to teach, you can't educate." Northwest
"Employer 1: I think another thing that MnSCU needs to look at is that we have a nursing faculty shortage.

Employer 2: Absolutely.

Employer 1: And the Minnesota Board of Nursing with this national accreditation requirement increases the bar for credentialing master's degrees for all full-time nursing faculty. At [MnSCU college], our length in program isn't the same that you're dealing with up here. Our PN program is 44 credits and our AD program is 60 credits. And we actually get the luxury of going up to 64 credits now. We are candidates in both programs, and will be visited next year and hope to get it on first, but it's about 50/50 right now. Meanwhile, the faculty shortage is continuing, we were just at Health Educators last week, and we did a hand-raising on how many people are going to retire in the next five years—and there was a lot of grey hair in the room. So that is a major problem."
Northwest