NLN Celebrates 130 Years of Leadership in Nursing & Nursing Education
NLN Celebrates 130 Years of Leadership in Nursing & Nursing Education
Save the Date for the 2023 NLN Education Summit, Sept. 28-30: Extraordinary Nurse Educators Leading in Extraordinary Times
Washington, DC — The National League for Nursing, the nation’s first nursing association, this year celebrates 130 years as the leading voice of nursing education. Founded by 15 pioneering nurse educators during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair as the American Society of Superintendents of Training Schools of Nursing, the National League for Nursing has since grown to represent nearly 45,000 faculty, deans, directors, and senior administrators in nursing programs across the spectrum of higher education. They are joined by about 1,100 organizational members, including colleges and universities, health and hospital systems, and nonprofit health care organizations and corporate stakeholders in the health care sector.
The National League for Nursing will celebrate this milestone during the 2023 NLN Education Summit, September 28-30 at National Harbor near Washington, D.C. “Please join us when we will pay tribute to the thousands of extraordinary nurse educators who innovate every day to implement meaningful and sustainable change in learning, instruction, research, and policy,” said NLN Chair Kathleen Poindexter, PhD, RN, CNE, ANEF, interim associate dean of academic affairs at Michigan State University in Lansing. “Today’s nurse educators are the latest generation of thought leaders, scholars, researchers, and master teachers who bring their vision, wisdom, and experience to the preparation of a diverse, inclusive nursing workforce, capable of delivering outstanding patient care.”
Reflecting on the connections between the past, present, and future in nursing education, NLN President and CEO Beverly Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN, said, “The legacy of extraordinary nurse leaders who achieved reform and transformation in their times continues to fuel the National League for Nursing in its mission, purpose and tenacity to co-create and collaborate in transformative excellence in nursing education to advance individual, communal, and planetary health.”
League membership has proved more valuable than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, which fully exposed the fault lines that disproportionately affect communities of color and other marginalized, under-resourced populations. As much of nursing education was forced online and a beleaguered frontline nursing workforce struggled to meet overwhelming demand, the League offered support through free, classroom-ready digital teaching and learning resources and remote professional development opportunities.
One visible example of these are the bold diversity and inclusion initiatives that form a core aspect of the featured content on the recently launched award-winning League website, NLN.org. The website, whose style and design maximize the user experience, provides nurses and nurse educators with tools and resources to aid in broadening social and economic justice and health care equity.
Other noteworthy National League for Nursing initiatives include:
- The Year of the Nurse Educator campaign supported national recognition of nurse educators as heroes behind the frontline nursing workforce during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Hosting the Nursing Education Research Conference (NERC) in Washington, DC, March 30-April 1, 2023
- Over 40 years of publishing Nursing Education Perspectives, the League’s flagship journal that provides evidence for best practices in nursing education
- Taking Aim, an award-winning program to battle structural racism and increase diversity and inclusion in nursing education, co-created with AMN Healthcare and the Elsevier Foundation
- Partnerships with Johnson & Johnson and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to recruit more students of color into nursing
- NLN/Walden University Institute for Social Determinants of Health and Social Change, a partnership between the NLN and Walden University, a university dedicated to positive social change, reflects contemporary thinking about the role nursing education and interprofessional colleagues must play in achieving health equity for people across race, gender, age, and socioeconomic status
- Creation of the Institute for the Care of Vulnerable Populations through expansion of the online ACE teaching series, Advancing Care Excellence for Vulnerable Populations, to include new free simulations and digital resources for pediatrics; veterans; caregivers; persons with disabilities; LGBTQ+ individuals; and Alzheimer’s patients and families
- Creation of the Institute for Simulation and Technology to explore and offer state-of-the-art instruction in tele-health, simulations, e-learning, and informatics
- Expansion of the Vision Series, with statements published on climate change and health; integration of social determinants of health into nursing curricula; the fair testing imperative; and equitable access to vaccines and COVID-19 treatments
- Partnership with American Heart Association and Laerdal Medical Corp. to promote RQI: Resuscitation Quality Improvement, a competency-based model helping to transform care and outcomes for cardiac arrest and stroke victims
- Launch of the NLN Career Center, offering job opportunities to the nursing education community
- New certifications in addition to the CNE®, including CNEn® for novice nurse educators and CNEcl® for clinical nurse educators
- Further expansion of NLN CNEA Accreditation, a U.S. Department of Education-approved accrediting institution for nursing education programs
- Increase in NLN competitive scholarships and research grants through the NLN Foundation for Nursing Education to boost support of original and independent scholarly research and advanced degree study with the aim of increasing nurse faculty recruitment and retention
For more information about the 2023 NLN Education Summit and the National League for Nursing, visit NLN.org.
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About the National League for Nursing
Dedicated to excellence in nursing, the National League for Nursing is the premier organization for nurse faculty and leaders in nursing education. The NLN offers professional development, networking opportunities, testing services, nursing research grants, and public policy initiatives to its nearly 45,000 individual and 1,100 institutional members, comprising nursing education programs across the spectrum of higher education and health care organizations. Learn more at NLN.org.