Cultivating the next generation of nurse educators

Clinical Assistant Professor Marshall Muehlbauer leads discussion with Master of Nursing students during the Essentials of Holistic Health Assessment course.

The national nursing shortage is anchored in a higher-education bottleneck: nursing schools turn away qualified applicants due to a deficit of faculty. 

In recent years, U.S. nursing schools have turned away tens of thousands of qualified applicants, with faculty vacancies listed as a primary contributing factor, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

To help break this cycle, the University of Minnesota School of Nursing is intentionally cultivating an academic pipeline. By supporting doctoral students with structured mentorship, graduate teaching assistantships, and post-graduation teaching appointments, the school is demystifying academia and developing practicing nurses into confident faculty members.

“There is a trajectory there. By supporting doctoral students’ natural curiosity about teaching early in their programs, we can actively cultivate the next generation of faculty and clinical leaders that our academic and healthcare systems desperately needs,” says Susan Gross Forneris, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN, associate dean for academic programs. 

The School of Nursing launched the course Transformative Teaching: Teaching for Learning in Mind to equip new educators with evidence-based pedagogical strategies, cognitive learning theories, and modern debriefing techniques.

“The school is supporting new faculty as part of their onboarding with time to engage in the Transformative Teaching course. This is helping to create a shared mental model on good teaching,” says Gross Forneris. 

For Danielle MacLaurin, DNP, APRN, CNP, an experienced nurse practitioner since 2006, returning to school for her post-master’s Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree and Acute Care certification was initially about aligning her clinical practice. Teaching was not on her radar. However, serving as a teaching assistant (TA) unlocked an unexpected interest in academia.

“The School of Nursing did a really nice job of placing us in areas where our strengths were,” says MacLaurin. “As a clinical-based person, being placed in clinical scenarios allowed me to feel comfortable in the role and not feel like an impostor.”

MacLaurin served as a clinical instructor on a designated education unit (DEU) on a cardiac step-down unit at the University of Minnesota Medical Center, where she already served as a nurse practitioner. The University provided robust onboarding and self-learning modules to help turn her bedside experience into actionable teaching tools.

“They provided us with resources on Socratic questioning and responding—things I didn’t know because I’m not traditionally trained as a teacher,” MacLaurin says. “It really reinvigorated me to see that fresh desire in nursing students.”

Having recently completed her DNP degree, MacLaurin is stepping into a teaching specialist role at the School of Nursing. While maintaining her clinical role, she is co-teaching courses alongside her former adviser and tutoring undergraduate students.

Similarly, Amanda Connor, DNP, RN, who recently graduated with a DNP degree in integrative health and healing, found her path to full-time academia through guided mentorship. Throughout her doctoral studies, Connor served as a TA and clinical instructor across diverse psychiatric and substance use settings, including Hennepin County Medical Center and Hazelden Betty Ford. Following graduation, Connor accepted a full-time teaching specialist position with the School of Nursing. 

“What I’m seeing with teaching in general is that you’re always evolving as an instructor,” Connor says. “The support of my program adviser gave me the confidence to step into this full time.”

For Marshall Muehlbauer, PhD, RN, PHN, CHSE, CNE, the roles of teaching assistant and teaching specialist evolved into serving as a clinical assistant professor at the School of Nursing. Muehlbauer emphasizes that structured faculty mentoring eased the transition from student to educator. 

“Now more than ever, we need to provide our students with the highest quality education,” says Muehlbauer. “I really think that the School of Nursing is committed to that high quality education and producing high quality graduates. I feel really lucky to be able to be here.”