Patricia K. Young

Best Practices in Academic Mentoring: A Model for Excellence

Mentoring is important for the recruitment and retention of qualified nurse faculty, their ongoing career development, and leadership development. However, what are current best practices of mentoring? The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of a model for excellence in establishing a formal mentoring program for academic nurse educators. Six themes for establishing a formal mentoring program are presented, highlighting best practices in mentoring as culled from experience and the literature. Themes reflect aims to achieve appropriately matched dyads, establish clear mentorship purpose and goals, solidify the dyad relationship, advocate for and guide the protégé, integrate the protégé into the academic culture, and mobilize institutional resources for mentoring support. Attending to the six themes will help mentors achieve important protégé outcomes, such as orientation to the educator role, integration into the academic community, development of teaching, scholarship, and service skills, as well as leadership development. The model is intended to be generalizable for faculty teaching in a variety of academic nursing institution types and sizes. Mentoring that integrates the six themes assists faculty members to better navigate the academic environment and more easily transition to new roles and responsibilities.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: facing challenges through reflecting, persevering and relating in new ways

AIM The aim of the present study was to explore the experience of becoming a nurse faculty leader. BACKGROUND In a recent interpretation of 23 interviews conducted with nurse faculty leaders from across the United States about their experiences of becoming a leader three themes were identified: being thrust into leadership, taking risks and facing challenges. EVALUATION This interpretive phenomenological study further explicates three aspects of how nurse educators faced challenges in becoming and serving as a leader. KEY ISSUES Facing challenges meant reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate to others in new ways. Exemplars of participant experiences are provided for concreteness, to assist readers in determining how findings resonate with their own experience and how they can actualize this resonance in their own leadership practice. CONCLUSIONS In the present study, reflecting, persevering through difficulties and learning to relate with others in a new way was how leaders faced challenges. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT Leadership development opportunities that facilitate self-exploration, caring and thoughtful interactions with others and values clarification serve as the foundation for becoming a nurse faculty leader who is, in turn, able to build leadership capacity in other individuals and organizations.

TRYING SOMETHING NEW: REFORM as Embracing the Possible, the Familiar, and the At-Hand

Trying something new in the reform of teaching through the use of a new nursing pedagogy, Narrative Pedagogy, is illuminated. Pedagogies are specific approaches to teaching and learning. Narrative Pedagogy is a site-specific approach to teaching and learning that evolves out of present resources and creates new possibilities. Exemplar student, teacher, and nurse preceptor narratives about their experiences of trying something new in precepting junior-level students in the acute care clinical setting were analyzed hermeneutically as an interpretive phenomenological study. Although Narrative Pedagogy is site specific, the processes of using this pedagogy for reform are generalizable.

TOWARD AN INCLUSIVE SCIENCE OF NURSING EDUCATION: An Examination of Five Approaches to Nursing Education Research

This article illuminates how a new science of nursing education, one that is inclusive of not only traditional empiric-analytic research, but also alternative research approaches reflecting phenomenology, critical social theory, feminist theory, and postmodern discourse, is developing. Each of these research paradigms is reviewed and research questions are explicated in the context of research on the national licensure examination (NCLEX-RN)®. The author contends that research to develop the science of nursing education must be multimethod, multiparadigmatic, and multi-pedagogical. Implications for developing an inclusive science of nursing education toward curricular reform are discussed.

BECOMING a Nursing Faculty Leader

ABSTRACT Academic leaders are one component of a well‐prepared faculty that is required to achieve and sustain excellent educational programs. But what is it like to become an academic leader? How does one become a leader? These questions were addressed in an interpretive study in which nurse faculty leaders were interviewed about the experience of becoming a leader. Interview texts were analyzed hermeneutically by a research team to uncover three themes (common, shared experiences): Being Thrust into Leadership, Taking Risks, and Facing Challenges, which are explicated in this article.This study develops the evidence base for leadership preparation at a time when there is a strong need for nursing education leaders in academia.

Connecting in distance mentoring: communication practices that work.

BACKGROUND As nursing and healthcare become more global, supported by technology, the opportunities for distance mentoring increase. Mentorship is critical to nurse educator recruitment and retention. STUDY OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to identify communication practices of nurse educators involved in mentoring at a distance. DESIGN/SETTINGS A qualitative design, utilizing in-person or telephone interviews was used. Participants were twenty-three protégés or mentors who were part of a yearlong distance mentoring program. ANALYSIS METHOD An iterative process of hermeneutic analysis identified three themes; this paper focuses on the theme of connectedness. RESULTS Participant narratives illuminate practices of connecting at a distance: meeting face-to-face, sharing personal information, experiencing reciprocity, journaling, being vulnerable, establishing ones presence, and appreciating different perspectives. CONCLUSION Distance does not appear to limit the connecting potential leading to a meaningful mentoring relationship; rather, it offers possibilities that local mentoring relationships may not. Nurse educators in under-resourced countries, those in small programs without a cadre of senior faculty, and students in distance programs are among those who stand to benefit from distance mentoring relationships.

Becoming a Nurse Faculty Leader: Practices of Leading Illuminated Through Advancing Reform in Nursing Education

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to explore the lived experience of becoming a nurse faculty leader. BACKGROUND In a recent study of 24 nurse faculty leaders across the United States about their experience of becoming a leader, many of the participants hesitated to call themselves leaders. METHODS This interpretive phenomenological study explored the meaning and significance of nurse faculty leadership. Exemplars of participant leadership development experiences are provided to assist readers in determining how the findings relate to their own practice. FINDINGS The data revealed that leadership emerges as an embodied practice when nurse educators become involved in advancing reform. Practical leadership strategies for advancing reform in nursing education are presented. CONCLUSION Leadership is learned through three everyday practices of advancing reform in nursing education: being involved with others; struggling to serve as a symbol and preserve authenticity; and creating an environment for change. This study offers new insight on leadership development, with practical implications for how leadership is taught in nursing curriculum and how nurses can more effectively own leadership roles.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: Taking risks by doing the right thing

Risk taking is a key aspect of academic leadership essential to meeting the challenges and opportunities in higher education. What are the practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders? This interpretive phenomenological study examines the experience and meaning of risk taking among nurse leaders. The theme of doing the right thing is brought forth through in-depth hermeneutic analysis of 14 individual interviews and two focus group narratives. The practice of doing the right thing is propelled and captured by leaders through a sense professional responsibility, visioning the future, and being true to self and follow ones core values. This study develops an evidence base for incorporating ways of doing the right thing in leadership development activities at a time when there is tremendous need for highly effective leaders in academic settings. Examining the practices of doing the right thing as a part of leadership development lays a foundation for building the next generation of nursing leaders prepared to navigate the ever-changing and complex academic and health care environments.

BECOMING A NURSE FACULTY LEADER: DOING YOUR HOMEWORK TO MINIMIZE RISK TAKING

Risk taking is an important aspect of academic leadership; yet, how does taking risks shape leadership development, and what are the practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders? This interpretative phenomenological study examines the meaning and experience of risk taking among formal and informal nurse faculty leaders. The theme of doing your homework is generated through in-depth hermeneutic analysis of 14 interview texts and 2 focus group narratives. The practice of doing ones homework is captured in weighing costs and benefits, learning the context, and cultivating relationships. This study develops an evidence base for incorporating ways of doing ones homework into leadership development activities at a time when there is a tremendous need for nurse leaders in academic settings. Examining the practices of doing ones homework to minimize risk as a part of leadership development provides a foundation for cultivating nurse leaders who, in turn, are able to support and build leadership capacity in others.

Becoming a nurse faculty leader: Taking risks by being willing to fail

BACKGROUND Higher education is undergoing rapid transformation requiring nurse faculty leaders to engage in risk taking. Consequently, what is known about the experience of taking risks? How do leaders decide what constitutes a risk worth taking? How do leaders who take risks tolerate failure? The purpose of this study was to explicate the leadership practices of risk taking in nurse faculty leaders. METHOD Interpretive phenomenology was used to explore the experience of risk taking among 15 self-identified nurse faculty leaders. Unstructured audio recorded interviews were conducted in which participants described their experiences of taking risks. Transcribed interviews were analyzed by a research team to uncover themes in the narrative data. RESULTS A theme, willingness to fail, and three subthemes, enacting a culture of experimentation, working hard for success, and learning from failure are reported. CONCLUSION This study provides practical know-how and an evidence-base to support nurse academic leaders in the practice of risk taking during these challenging times in higher education.