Lack of faculty hobbles nursing program

Despite the increasing number of student enrolled in the program, the Northern Marianas College Nursing Program is finding it hard to employ and retain qualified nursing faculty members.

According to the NMC Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2005, the college’s ongoing turnover of nursing faculty members signifies that the consistent improvement in the program is nearly impossible because “there is currently a national shortage, not only of nurses but also nursing faculty.”

The CNMI needs to be more competitive in terms of the salaries it offers its teaching staff if NMC wants to secure and retain the services of qualified nursing instructors, the report adds.

It was earlier reported that the program has been suffering from a lack of funding, resulting in difficulties in recruiting nursing faculty as well as other faculty members of the college. If funding is sufficient, said the report, there would be a more effective recruitment of faculty members from the United States.

“Such funding has been included every year in the Nursing Department budget request, and every year it has been deleted,” a portion of the report reads.

Due to the ongoing dilemma in funding, the report said, advertising in highly respected nursing journals or the attendance of program representatives at recruitment meetings in key areas—critical in addressing NMC’s shortage of nursing faculty members—has not been achieved for several years now.

“The program has greatly increased in size in recent years. Unfortunately the college has been unable to keep pace with this growth by hiring the necessary number of instructors. The department needs to receive a greater percentage of the revenues generated by Public Law 10-66 in order to meet the needs of its student body,” said the report.

The number of students enrolled in the Nursing Department has increased in past years. The report said 27 students enrolled with the department in Fall 2004, which is expected to rise to 30 in Fall 2005.

The department chair and some students, both local and non-local, visited the Legislature last year to ask for additional funds for the department. The group had asked the lawmakers to appropriate at least $310,000 per year for the Nursing Department to help it meet the needs of the program and the students.