The College of Nursing has been awarded a $10,000 grant from the Jonas Center for Nursing and Veterans Healthcare to be used for a 2014 doctoral student scholarship. The college is matching the funds.
As a recipient of this grant, the college is part of a national effort to stem the faculty shortage and prepare future nurses as America’s health care system continues to evolve.
The Jonas Center is a philanthropy dedicated to building the effectiveness of America’s professional nurses by developing outstanding faculty, advancing scholarship, and sparking innovative practice.
Last year marked the lowest enrollment increase in professional registered nurse programs in the past five years, according to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. This is due primarily to a shortage in qualified faculty.
“This award will enable us to provide much-needed funding for a PhD student who will assume a faculty role after graduation,” said Sandra Thomas, professor and chair of the College of Nursing’s PhD program. “One of the biggest needs in our PhD program is additional scholarship funding for our students. Although the Institute of Medicine has called for doubling the number of nurses with doctorates by 2020, many men and women who would be excellent nurse educators simply cannot afford to undertake doctoral study.”
The UT Jonas Scholar will join nearly 600 future nurse educators and leaders at 110 schools supported by two Jonas Center programs: the Jonas Nurse Leaders Scholars Program and Jonas Veterans Healthcare Program. These scholarships support nurses pursuing Doctor of Nursing Practice and other doctoral degrees.
“The call for more nurses, and thus the faculty to prepare them, is massive. Health care in America has never been more complex, yet tens of thousands of would-be nurses are turned away from the profession each year,” said Donald Jonas, co-founder of the Jonas Center. “We’ve stepped up the pace and expanded our programs to meet this need.”
UT’s College of Nursing is a nationally recognized leader in nursing. The college enrolls more than 600 students in undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs. The master’s program offers concentration areas in family practice, administration, pediatrics, mental health, and nurse anesthesia. To find out more, visit the college’s website. www.nursing.utk.edu
To find out more about the Jonas Center, visit its website at www.jonascenter.org.
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C O N T A C T:
Whitney Heins (865-974-5460, wheins@utk.edu)