Abstract
Background: The shortage of nursing faculty is well documented as are the challenges of attracting and retaining early-career faculty, in part, due to difficulties transitioning expert clinicians into faculty roles.
Problem: There is little guidance in the literature describing successful formal transition models.
Approach: An urban College of Nursing Faculty Practice (CON FP) underwent an operational redesign beginning in 2014, resulting in an intentional success: a pipeline for attracting and developing early-career faculty. This article describes how the CON FP leverages faculty practice to develop early-career faculty.
Outcomes: Across a 6-year time span, at least 20 early-career CON FP clinicians have transitioned to full-time faculty roles. In addition, CON FP clinicians provide more than 75 000 direct care nursing services and support more than 25 000 student clinical and project hours annually.
Conclusions: We offer this early-career faculty practice pipeline model as a solution for attracting and growing a contemporary nursing faculty workforce.