The University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies (UM SONHS) is one of 28 schools of nursing nationwide selected for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Future of Nursing Scholars grant award. The award, which aims to increase the number of nurses holding PhDs., provides financial support, mentoring, and leadership development to nurses who commit to earn their PhDs in three years. Since 2015, the UM SONHS has received a total of $375,000 from RWJF through this program. The School of Nursing and Health Studies will select two nursing students to receive these two most recent and prestigious scholarships.
“The Future of Nursing Scholars program is making an incredible impact in real time. These nurses will complete their PhDs in three years, a much quicker progression than is typically seen in nursing PhD programs,” said Julie Fairman, PhD, RN, FAAN, Future of Nursing Scholars program co-director and the Nightingale professor of nursing and the chair of the Department of Biobehavioral Health Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
The Future of Nursing Scholars program is a multi-funder initiative. In addition to RWJF, Johnson & Johnson, Northwell Health, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Sharp HealthCare, Rush University Medical Center, Care Institute Group, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are supporting the Future of Nursing Scholars grants to schools of nursing this year.
“We need a highly educated nursing workforce to meet 21st century health challenges,” said Dr. Anne E. Norris, Interim Dean of the School of Nursing and Health Studies. “RWJF and its partners are to be commended for joining forces to create this unique mechanism that strengthens nursing education. We are delighted that with the help of RWJF Future of Nursing scholarships, our school is replenishing the pipeline with capable and competent Ph.D.-level nurses, and helping these next-generation leaders reach their academic and professional goals.”
In its landmark Future of Nursing report, the Institute of Medicine recommended doubling the number of the nation’s doctorate-prepared nurses; doing so will prepare these nurses to lead change that will advance health, promote nurse-led science and discovery, and put more educators in place to prepare the next generation of nursing professionals. The Future of Nursing Scholars program is intended to help address those recommendations.
“We were pleased to see that enrollment in doctorate of nursing practice programs has increased 160% from 2010 to 2014. However, we want to ensure that we also have PhD-prepared nurse leaders in faculty and research roles. In the same time period, PhD enrollment has only increased by 14.6%. The nurses funded through the Future of Nursing Scholars program will make important contributions to the field and be well-prepared to mentor other nurses,” said Susan Hassmiller, PhD, RN, FAAN, co-director of the program and RWJF’s senior adviser for nursing.
The 51 nurses supported in this round will join 109 Scholars across the three previous cohorts. The program plans to add a fifth cohort, which will bring the number of funded Scholars to more than 200 nurses nationwide. The two new SONHS Future of Nursing Scholars will begin the program this summer and their PhD studies in Fall 2017.
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About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve the health and health care of all Americans. We are striving to build a national Culture of Health that will enable all to live longer, healthier lives now and for generations to come. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.
About the School of Nursing and Health Studies
Established in 1948 as South Florida’s first collegiate nursing program, the School of Nursing and Health Studies at the University of Miami has a distinguished tradition of preparing healthcare professionals to provide compassionate quality care to local, national and international communities. Health professions’ students at the undergraduate and graduate levels are educated by renowned scholars, and exposed to a broad range of clinical experiences and cutting-edge research. Since its inception, the program has provided diverse educational opportunities for over 6,000 healthcare professionals at the undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels. The curriculum includes degree programs leading to the BSN, the MSN, the Ph.D. and DNP degrees, as well as the BSHS (Bachelor of Science in Health Science) and BSPH (Bachelor of Science in Public Health). For more information, please visit the school website at http://www.miami.edu/sonhs.
