Findings from the 2009 Faculty Census: study confirms reported demographic trends and inequities in faculty salaries.

Abstract

Since 1962, the NLN has periodically conducted a faculty census survey designed to gauge the size and characteristics of the nurse educator population, including demographic characteristics, distribution by rank, credentials, and program type, and the number of vacant positions. The 2009 Faculty Census was administered as a subsection of the spring 2009 Annual Survey of Schools of Nursing. Responses were accepted between May and September 2009 and data reflect the nurse educator population as of February 2009. Because an increasing quantity of instruction in nursing education programs is performed by individuals who lack formal faculty status, the 2009 Faculty Census survey broke with past practice, asking schools to report on instructors at all ranks and in all faculty status categories, rather than on faculty alone. We are hopeful that this more expansive format provides the most complete picture possible of the contemporary nurse educator workforce. To supplement this synopsis, a comprehensive set of tables and figures is available in a variety of easy-to-use electronic formats at the NLN DataView[TM] website (www.nln.org/research/slides). Demographics AGE Both the percentage of faculty ages 30 to 45 and ages 46 to 60 dropped by 3 percent between 2006 and 2009. At the same time, the percentage of full-time educators over age 60 grew dramatically, from only 9 percent in 2006 to nearly 16 percent in 2009. Overall, 57 percent of part-time educators and nearly 76 percent of full-timers were over the age of 45 in 2009. Fourteen percent of full-time nurse educators belonged to a racial-ethnic minority in 2009, in comparison with 10.5 percent when the last faculty census was conducted in 2006. However. a great deal of that difference is likely attributable to the most recent survey's inclusion of educators without faculty status. Although race breakdowns within rank were not available in 2006, in 2009 the percentage of African-American and Hispanic faculty was about one percent higher among junior faculty (instructor and assistant professor ranks) than among senior faculty (associate professor or professor), suggesting that inclusion of nonfaculty in the 2009 survey would indeed boost the number of minority educators reported. Given these survey changes, comparing the diversity of the nurse educator population with that of the general United States postsecondary faculty population offers a useful, alternative reference point. The 2009 faculty Census found that nurses had slightly larger proportions of African-American colleagues--with 7.5 percent among full-timers and 8.5 percent among part-timers--and Hispanic representation was similar to that found among academies overall. However, Asians were strikingly underrepresented among nurse educators, at less than half the level found more broadly in academia. A glance at the racial-ethnic distribution of the US female civilian labor force does more to underscore the gulf between nursing education and the rest of the American working population in terms of diversity. In 2009, almost 13 percent of female worker's over age 20 were African American, a proportion that dwarfed the fraction of African Americans found in nursing education (approximately 8 percent). And a similar percentage of the female labor force was Hispanic, nearly triple the proportion of Hispanics found among nurse educators. (See Figure 1.) Salaries Despite a national shortage of nurse educators, the salaries of nurse educators in 2009 remained notably below those earned by similarly ranked faculty across higher education. This was true at almost every rank. At the professor rank nurse educators suffer the largest deficit, with salaries averaging 45 percent lower than those of their nonnurse colleagues. Associate and assistant nursing professors were also at a disadvantage, earning 19 and 15 percent less than similarly ranked faculty in other fields, respectively. …