Exploring and Responding to Increased Burnout among Higher Education Nursing Faculty

Faculty in higher education, especially Nursing faculty, are at high risk for stress and burnout. This risk is poised to worsen with the current nursing faculty shortage. According to AACN’s report 2022-2023 Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in Nursing, U.S. nursing schools turned away 78,191 qualified applications from baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in 2022 due to an insufficient number of faculty, clinical sites, classroom space, clinical preceptors, and budget constraints. Most nursing schools responding to the survey pointed to faculty shortages as a top reason for not accepting all qualified applicants into their programs. Compounding the issue is an increasing shortage of nurses, and a need to fill those positions with qualified and competent new nurses. Programs are being pushed to operate at maximum capacity and nursing faculty are experiencing increasing burnout. The United States’ experience with the pandemic has placed the reality of our current nursing shortage, and its widespread implications into the spotlight. While burnout has been addressed in clinical nursing, burnout among nurse faculty has not received as much attention.