Mentoring influences on the retention of part-time nursing adjunct faculty and the enculturation of leadership behaviors

The United States is suffering from a severe shortage of nursing faculty, including nursing adjunct faculty who play a vital role in filling the gap created by the lack of adequate full-time faculty in most colleges. The projections are such that over the next ten years, registered nurses both in practice and in nursing education will retire at a rate that will exceed the hiring rate because of the ongoing retirement of baby boomers. Research has shown that nursing adjunct faculty who are transitioning from bedside nursing practice or from advanced practicing nursing may be experts in their fields but may lack teaching literacy required for success as educators in their new role. This phenomenological study explored the perceptions, experiences, and understanding of part-time nursing adjunct faculty about mentoring relative to retention and leadership development in the teaching domains of course preparation, instructor skills, and clinical teaching. Nine former and current nursing adjunct faculty members associated with nursing institutions in the US Northeast were interviewed about experiences critical to a mentoring program: (a) institutional preparedness for novice part-time nursing adjuncts; (b) institutional knowledge acquisition; (c) measuring program success; (d) reinventing mentoring programs for leadership development; (e) relationship building; (f) leadership visibility and involvement in mentoring. Results indicated that organizational ethos for successful mentoring of part-time nursing adjunct must be as important as the drive for institutional sustainability. Technology such as virtual mentoring and chat rooms for networking can enhance mentoring of novice part time nursing adjunct faculty members. Organizational development of leadership mentoring programs to assist novice nursing adjuncts may benefit from more leadership presence and awareness of nursing adjunct needs regarding retention and career success.