Over 33 years ago, Barbara J. Brown, EdD, RN, CNAA, FNAP, FAAN, the consummate editor-in-chief of Nursing Administration Quarterly (NAQ) until 2012, and guest editor Muriel A. Poulin, EdD, RN, FAAN, Professor Boston University School of Nursing, published the NAQ, "Nursing Education, Part II-Pre-reports of Nurse Administrators" in the summer of 1979. This seminal issue was the harbinger of this current issue. In 1979, Boston University School of Nursing sponsored the invitational conference "Nursing Administration: Director for the Future." Both academicians and acute care nurse administrators were in attendance. The intent of the conference was to reassess the nursing administration graduate program and initiate a proposal with a more practical, contemporary, and futuristic context. This conference produced no definite best approach to preparing top-level nurse executives and actually considerable ambivalence existed about the focus of the curriculum. Some felt very strongly that administration should be the area of expertise and others felt just as strongly that clinical nursing should be the focus of graduate study.
As a visionary, Dr Poulin summarized her feelings in 1979, which still remain salient today, "Educational programs must prepare an administrator for the future-one who will possess the competencies to function at the executive level of an organization, one who will be a developer of people, an integrator and coordinator of the efforts of highly specialized professionals, an innovator in developing effective systems for delivery care and a catalyst in nursing, in the organization and in the community."
In retrospect and self-reflection of the 1979 NAQ, I realize that as a profession we have always known what our role as executive nurse leaders should be but actualizing for the day, month, and year is and always will be dynamic and fluid. Hence, the goal of the 2011 North Star Invitational Summit, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Nursing and Healthcare Administration Graduate program, was to generate a nurse executive-focused constellation of research questions utilizing the collective wisdom of national nurse executive leaders and scholars to provide a catalytic direction for the creation of evidence-based leadership practice designed to strengthen the emerging role of the nurse executive.
This summit had been my vision for many years and with the support and expertise of my University of Pennsylvania colleagues, Dr Patricia Benner, PhD, RN, FAAN, FRCN, and Barbara Brown, Editor of NAQ, a planning committee was developed. The framework established by the planning committee is based on 3 domains: (1) professional and personal organizational leadership; (2) transitions in care accountability; and (3) high reliability in nursing practice. The issue contains 8 articles based on the domains from each of the guest speakers, including a University of Pennsylvania doctoral candidate, Aditi Rao. Ms Rao initiated the conference, presenting her literature review of the state of the science in nursing administration research for the last several decades. The 11/2-day summit was innovative, energizing, and provocative. As a Co-Editor, Kathleen Burke, PhD, RN, provides an executive summary of the Summit, and I conclude the issue with an epilogue that provides a treasure trove of insights, new language, and visions deemed from the attendees of the summit. As a reader of this issue, Dr. Burke and I hope that you gain at least 1 new idea or insight from this landmark 2011 North Star Invitational Summit.
-Victoria L. Rich, PhD, RN, FAAN
-Kathleen G. Burke, PhD, RN, CENP
Issue Editors