This article describes an innovative practice in advancing careers of academic nurse educators: demonstrating scholarly productivity from project grants. Nurse educators, especially at the associate and full professor ranks, are often involved in leadership activities that include writing and managing program or training grants, which might be less likely than research grants, to advance their careers. We encourage the academy to value and support the development of clinical and educational project grants that include significant scholarly components, and we offer exemplars of associate and full professor scholarship derived from such grants.
BACKGROUND AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Traditional models of scholarship based on total research grant dollars and publications may not offer scholars freedom or opportunity to improve population health through funded programs and projects (Hofmeyer, Newton, & Scott, 2007). Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered report outlined a model that encouraged faculty to apply their expertise creatively by explicating the scholarship of teaching, application, integration, and discovery (Boyer, 1990). A gap remains between this idea and the reality of tenure and promotion at research-intensive universities (Calleson, Jordan, & Seifer, 2005).
The nursing discipline can contribute to help resolve the gap between rhetoric and reality through advocacy for a more broadly defined definition of scholarship. Based on Boyer's model, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN, 1999) identified four aspects of scholarship important in academic nursing. Like scholars in other clinical disciplines, nurse scholars are often called on to manage program or training grants with well-described evaluative components. Building on the work of Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997), Eddy (2007) suggested that published findings based on data and experiences obtained through program grants should count as scholarly work as long as they meet standards of rigor.
EXEMPLARS OF BOYER'S MODEL OF SCHOLARSHIP
Program or training grants may focus on curriculum or workforce development or on the development and/or evaluation of educational offerings or new programs, to name a few examples (see Supplemental Digital Content at http://links.lww.com/NEP/A48). Scholarly publications derived from program or training grants might encompass all four types of scholarships described by Boyer (1990). One may discover new knowledge as a result of carefully assessing program outcomes, or participants may offer insights that inform teaching strategies. Many program grants are interdisciplinary in nature and thus facilitate the integration of areas of nursing expertise into the knowledge base of other disciplines, assisting nurse educators to understand and articulate how their work fits into larger intellectual patterns. Most often, however, findings from program or training grants offer the opportunity to focus on the scholarship of application, on engagement in relevant communities of interest so that project findings can be applied to consequential problems.
BENEFITS, STRENGTHS, AND CHALLENGES
Program grants generally include a fairly substantive, rigorous evaluative component. It is often from such program evaluation findings that scholarship is enhanced. These activities provide opportunities for data-based publications about program processes/outcomes, offer practice writing grant applications, and may fund "buy out" of teaching time, allowing more time for publication and scholarship. Benefits include the demonstration of faculty ability to manage processes and mentor personnel on projects, advancement of disciplinary knowledge, and opportunities to engage with potential collaborators, including graduate students and external reviewers.
Strengths of program grants include expanding funding opportunities into organizations that provide fairly large monetary awards from a single proposal. These projects, often multiyear, allow the longitudinal development of concepts, plans, and projects and make possible the purchase of equipment/software that has value beyond the funding period, thus contributing to project sustainability. The length of these projects can facilitate the promotion of ideas that lead to the development of new projects and encourage collaboration within and across disciplines and institutions. Careful systematic examination of project outcomes can provide a solid foundation for future studies by yielding descriptive data about populations or clinically or educationally relevant problems.
Program grants are not without challenges. Management responsibilities for large projects are time consuming and can hamper scholarly productivity if not intentionally integrated into one's scholarly trajectory. This can be difficult if a scholar's mentors or potential external reviewers value only the scholarship of discovery. Some program and training grant proposals do not require the inclusion of methods sections, focusing instead on the submission of task-oriented work plans that emphasize rigorous evaluation research and application rather than focus on the research of discovery. Therefore, to be effective in generating presentations and publications, scholars who are developing program and training grant applications should simultaneously develop research plans that promote discovery and include evaluative rigor. Furthermore, because program grants may contribute lower indirect (facilities/administration) monies to the grantee organization than do federal grants, nonnursing academic leaders should be educated about the importance of the scholarship of application and integration in overcoming institutional barriers to scholarship based on program grants.
In spite of these challenges, we have based much of our scholarship leading to tenure and promotion at a public, research-intensive university on outcomes from program and training grants. The second author (Renee) is a full professor in the College of Nursing (CON), associate dean for faculty affairs, and a member of the Washington Team for Academic Progression in Nursing grants. Outcomes from this project include a new direct transfer agreement streamlining access to RN-BSN programs statewide and new academic and practice partnerships. The third author (Cindy) is a fairly newly tenured associate professor. Program grants allowed her to develop skills as a scientist while enabling her to work with colleagues in implementing projects that asked and answered important practice-related questions. Having a background in management, administration, and consulting helped her plan and manage large budgets, multiple projects, and the personnel necessary to implement new ideas and programs.
The first author Linda, a tenured associate professor and associate dean in the same CON, is working toward an application for promotion to full professor. She is also a pediatric nurse practitioner who practices in a clinic one day per week. Her pretenure scholarship was based on outcomes from a statewide program for at-risk pregnant and parenting teens and from an administrative supplement to a National Institute of Health grant to evaluate services for families of children with physical disabilities. After tenure, she spent time in development and evaluation of a new baccalaureate nursing program in a developing country as a Fulbright scholar. Continuing this tradition of pursuing scholarly work through program grants, she is now principal investigator of a large program grant focused on the development of a children's behavioral health workforce.
RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
Our first recommendation is to believe that scholarship should continue to be broadly defined within nursing education units. We have been supported in our efforts in part by a faculty manual that includes the AACN (1999) definitions of scholarship based on the Boyer (1990) model, allowing the use of this definition in college-wide promotion and tenure decisions.
University-wide policy reforms can be helpful, but real, individual promotion and tenure debates often have more weight in actualizing the types of scholarship that are acceptable in a particular institution than do rules and regulations (Huber, 2002). Thus, it is incumbent upon senior nursing faculty and leaders to engage in those debates and in continually educating nonnursing academic leaders about the importance of the scholarship of application and integration in an applied discipline such as nursing.
Junior faculty interested in pursuing opportunities for tenure and advancement should be encouraged to seek opportunities to serve as peer reviewers for program grants. This can help the scholar see and understand what makes grant applications compelling and fundable. Nursing scholars at all levels should be encouraged to intentionally immerse evaluation and research questions into program and training grant proposals and to identify early the opportunities for publication, clearly negotiated with project team members about such things as order of authorship.
Finally, we encourage faculty seeking tenure and promotion to be mindful about the synergy between academic missions in planning and describing your scholarly trajectory. Developing scholarship plans that are closely tied to leadership, teaching, and scholarly activities of senior nursing faculty can facilitate progression.
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