August 8, 2018 | NLN CEO Update on the NLN Vision Statement on DNP | Member Survey

We talk a lot about diversity at the NLN — it is, after all, one of our core values, along with caring, integrity, and excellence. For the NLN, the word represents far more than the characteristics we use to describe individuals — characteristics of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and so forth. It also represents a diversity of perspectives based on differing experiences and intellectual outlooks. We are, after all, an association of all types of nursing programs, from LPN/LVN through doctorate education. And when I say all types I really mean it — nursing education is rich, complex, and welcoming, with accelerated programs of all kinds. We truly are a big tent profession — something that is very apparent when we all come together as we will in just five weeks at Summit 2018: 125 Years of Nursing Leadership.

My reasons for emphasizing diversity today are twofold. First, I want to alert you to the Membership Satisfaction Survey the NLN will launch just after Labor Day. It is critically important that when you receive a link to the survey, you take a few minutes to respond. We know how busy you are — and how easy it is to forget to respond — but to meet our objectives and ensure you get the most out of what we offer in terms of benefits, services, and professional development programming, we have to understand what you value from the NLN and where we have opportunities to grow. We will use the data you provide for strategic planning and evaluation and we will create a standard survey for benchmarking to understand improvements and deficiencies as we go forward. It goes without saying that we need to hear from members representing the full range of the programs we serve — and that means you — in fact, all of you. So, if you can complete the survey right away, that would be great!

My second reason for emphasizing diversity has to do with the importance of collaboration, and that's where diversity of experiences and intellectual outlooks comes into play. Nurses today are pursuing doctoral education in numbers we would not have expected 10 years ago, but with success there has been confusion, along with reports of misunderstanding and competition within the academic community among doctorally prepared faculty. Our view at the NLN is that the traditional research doctorate, the PhD, and the clinical doctorate, the DNP, are complementary. Through their scholarly work, graduates with both degrees bring diverse strengths to their scholarship and their work as educators. In April, we published the latest in a series of Vision Statements titled “A Vision for Doctoral Faculty Collaboration in Nursing Education” in which we call for the building of a transformative community of doctorally prepared faculty and a nurturing community of educators.

Inspired by the Vision Statement, the editors of the NLN research journal Nursing Education Perspectives called for a special themed issue on research collaboration among doctorally prepared educators to be ready in time for Summit 2018. I am happy to report that this issue will soon be online for all members, and print copies will be distributed at the Summit. The guest editors, Barbara J. Patterson of Widener University and Celeste M. Alfes of the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University, are themselves PhD and DNP faculty, respectively. In their editorial they talk about how each brought unique experiences to the review process and looked at manuscripts through different lenses. The resulting volume is excellent, with articles on strategies to facilitate collaboration and collegiality among DNP and PhD students, faculty role preparation, and examples of research conducted by DNP and PhD faculty working together. This is collaboration at its best. In fact, it represents one of our other core values — excellence.

I hope that you read Nursing Education Perspectives regularly and take advantage of this important member benefit. I recommend that you subscribe to the eTOC — that is, the electronic table of contents — by entering your email on the journal website, www.neponline.net. And if one of your goals is to publish in our journal or serve as a manuscript reviewer, you will have the opportunity to meet the editors on Friday afternoon at the Summit in a session titled “Writing for the NLN Research Journal.” Editor Dr. Joyce Fitzpatrick will be joined by Dr. Linda Caputi, Innovation Center editor, Dr. Barbara Patterson, Research Briefs editor, and managing editor Leslie Block, and they will answer all your questions. How about that for meeting your expectations and helping to progress your career?

Let me inform you also that themes for special issues have been selected for Summits 2019 and 2020. For 2019, a special issue is planned on research related to global nursing education with guest editors Drs. Angela McNelis and Tamara McKinnon. And for 2020, guest editors Drs. Susan Hassmiller, Audrey Beauvais, and Teresa Shellenbarger will mark the 10^th anniversary of the Institute of Medicine Future of Nursing report with a special issue featuring research studies focused on achieving success and meeting challenges to realize the report’s recommendations. If these topics match your research interests, be sure to check out the details.

Colleagues, thank you for letting me expound on the topic of diversity from a different point of view. It is one that is dear to me and to our NLN president G. Rumay Alexander, EdD, RN, FAAN, Associate Vice Chancellor on Diversity and Inclusion and Chief Diversity Officer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We will talk more about it and so much more during the Summit in Chicago, September 12 to 14, and are looking forward to greeting you and hearing your points of view.

See you at the Summit!

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Next Issue of the NLN Member Update: Wednesday, August 22, 2018. View previous issues of NLN Member Update »