Nursing grad students can get grants for teaching commitment

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One way to encourage teaching: Nursing grad students can get state grants for commitment to teach - Business First of Columbus:

A new state grant aims to reduce Ohio’s nursing shortage by first chipping away at its nursing faculty shortage.

As many as 45 registered nurses seeking advanced degrees will be eligible for grants of as much as $15,000 if they commit to teaching in nursing schools after graduating for at least four years, under a program announced Wednesday by the Ohio Board of Regents and Department of Job and Family Services. The grants toward tuition, books and living expenses for 2008-2009 will be paid for by $700,000 from the federal Workforce Investment Act.

“The program is aligned with state goals to build a demand-driven work force and strengthen linkages between higher education and Ohio’s health-care industries, a targeted economic development area for Ohio,” Chancellor Eric Fingerhut said in a release.

Grant recipients must take a faculty position within four years of earning an advanced degree at any of 16 public and private nursing schools, including Ohio State University, Mount Carmel College of Nursing and Capital University in Central Ohio. The deadline to apply is Nov. 3 for priority funding, although if money is left a second round will be accepted through May 15.

For grant information, click here.

A faculty shortage is plaguing nursing schools and other health professional schools, such as pharmacy and dentistry. Faced with a national shortage of nurses, the schools are losing professors either to retirement or much higher paying jobs at hospitals and practices.

Because of the shortage of both faculty and space for clinical training, nearly 6,500 qualified applicants were turned away from Ohio nursing schools in the 2006-2007 school year. That included half the applicants to OSU’s nursing school.

Ohio State and other schools also are trying to address the problem by how they structure degrees. Trustees this summer approved a separate advanced practice degree for nurses who want to become nurse-practitioners, saving the doctorate for those on the academic track.

Otterbein College, not listed as a participant in the state grant program, also added a clinically focused Doctor of Nursing Practice degree this year.
State lawmakers this year charged a committee to study the faculty and clinical space shortages and disparity in salaries and issue a report by Dec. 31.