Unleashing Nascent Ability in Team Members to Achieve Collective Desired Goals. Margaret S. Wacker RN PhD

Assessing the Challenge GIVENS: Micromanaged faculty and staff operating way below their potential. Outdated Curriculum. Tensions between the department and senior administrators. Lack of policies. Need for state of the art resources. Limited available space

Developing and Selling the Vision Engage faculty in creating their wish lists. Summarize the wishes and select those with highest collaborative value. Plug them into a shared vision: National accreditation, NLNAC.

First Step Prepare for NLNAC candidacy – Faculty attend NLNAC preparation seminars. – Faculty meet to develop a plan with a timeline.

How are We Going to Pay For This? The College could absorb the costs of the NLNAC preparation process. Additional costs far exceeded what we could expect from the college.

Grant Seeking Efforts The Director took on this formidable task and submitted five major and 2 minor proposals. – Every submitted grant proposal was awarded. – We now had the support to do the work to achieve our goal of NLNAC accreditation.

Grants Major Two Community Based Job Training Initiatives: – 1.$547, – 2.$216, Booth Foundation- $850,693. Succeed Florida Nursing Education Grant-$248,659. Jobs for Florida’s Future- Department of Education- $186,302. Smaller The Foundation of the National Student Nurses’ Association-$25,000. The Central Florida Area Health Education Center (AHEC)-$6,000.

Believing in Faculty We selected faculty professional development as a starting point in this arduous journey as we believed faculty professional growth was the single most important change from which all other changes would flow.

Faculty Professional Development Nine adjunct clinical faculty at the BSN level were supported and achieved MSN degrees. Six full-time faculty achieved MSN degrees. We achieved NLNAC requirements of 100% graduate prepared faculty. We exceeded the 50% adjunct requirement.

Additional Professional Development All full-time faculty and the majority of adjunct faculty attended a four day boot camp for nurse educators. Two full-time faculty achieved certification in simulation training. Five Full-time faculty achieved NLNAC Nurse Educator certification. Full-time faculty presented at national conferences, published book reviews, journal publications, edited nursing textbooks and a clinical education poster was accepted on an international web site.

Resources Space allocated to outside programs was reallocated to the nursing department. This provided us with an additional clinical lab, a simulation lab, six faculty offices and a conference room. The cost of these improvements was covered by the college through existing building funds.

Additional Resources State of the art simulators Class climate system for rapid processing of evaluation forms. Classroom response clickers for instant student feedback. Par test and Par score system for test analysis.

Curriculum With faculty development established we employed a curriculum consultant to assist us with the rewriting of curriculum. Following four two day sessions we produced the curriculum that met our goals.

Curriculum The writing of the new curriculum exposed areas needing additional work. – We needed policies regarding selection of textbooks, grading criteria, admission, readmission, drug testing, FBI/FDLE testing, and appeals procedures. – Ad hoc committees worked on policy development and submitted them to senior administrators for approval.

Departmental Relationships with Senior Administrators Senior administrators supported our goals and worked closely with us throughout the process. As a result of working together a new collegial relationship developed and has continued to grow following our achievement of our goal.

Director Role Keep the vision in front of all involved. Be the champion. Be present: Work shoulder to shoulder with faculty and staff at every level of the effort to stay on the time line. Get help (people and resources) when there is a lag or delay in the effort.

Address the Support Staff Roles Share their views about achieving the goal. Their amazing suggestions: – Developed and delivered information sessions for prospective students and new student orientation boot camps. – Simplified and streamlined previously cumbersome processes. – Generated a higher level of support for faculty.

NLNAC Accreditation Achieved Celebrate each person for their part. Celebrate the team accomplishment. Keep the energy flowing for continued growth.