Preparing nursing faculty for baccalaureate-level and graduate-level nursing programs: role preparation for the academy

This article explores the multiple roles expected of nursing faculty teaching in baccalaureate and graduate programs, as well as the preparation required to accomplish those roles. The educational preparation for the challenging roles nurse educators are required to assume is explored, along with suggestions on how to support faculty in their roles to ensure they are both productive and retained in their work. Although the research mission remains an important priority role for faculty today, it can easily overshadow and conflict with the equally compelling faculty roles needed to address the holistic development of the next generation of the profession: teaching; service, and practice. Boyer's dimensions of scholarship are used to suggest a structure for the roles that baccalaureate and graduate faculty in nursing programs need to be prepared to assume: the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching.