Description
The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to understand the lived experience of nurses who have transitioned into a career as community college nursing faculty. The majority of nurses in California receive their training in community colleges where the nursing faculty shortage is expected to worsen in the next 10 years. This study addresses the gap in research specific to community college faculty and the impending loss of faculty due to retirements. A phenomenological research design was used to extract the essence of the experience of a specific phenomenon (i.e., a nurse transitioning from a clinical position to a nursing faculty position in a community college). Individual interviews were conducted to gather rich data that is trustworthy and credible (validity) as well as dependable (reliability). Nine nursing faculty who teach in Southern California community colleges were interviewed during fall 2010. Individual interviews were conducted and transcripts were coded and analyzed in order to identify successful transition strategies that can be implemented to address the nursing faculty shortage. Exploring the experience of these faculty who are in the early stages of their careers revealed some of the causes and implications of the nursing faculty shortage. The following research questions guided this study: 1. What is the transition experience of new community college nursing faculty? 2. How can the recruitment of community college nursing faculty be enhanced? 3. How should support be constructed to promote retention of community college nursing faculty? Interpretation of the emerging themes and sub-themes enabled the researcher to draw meaning from the data, leading to lessons learned about the participant's experiences. The emerging themes included: (a) New nurses get an orientation, why not new faculty? (b) This is difficult in a different way; (c) The many rewards of my job do not come in the form of a paycheck; (d) I don't want to quit being a nurse! and (e) We need to build our team! Important recommendations on how to recruit and retain new community college faculty have been generated from this study. A model is proposed to Recruit, Retrain, and Retain (RRR) community college nursing faculty. Recruitment strategies include identifying nurses who demonstrate effective teaching skills and to begin these efforts when they are young. The retraining aspect is built on an individualized Orientation Needs Assessment Tool (ONAT) that includes offering interested nurses a job shadow experience prior to accepting employment. The retention component includes compensating experienced faculty members for the time they spend orienting new faculty through the provision of professional development or committee participation credit.
