External Scholarship Mentors for DNP-Prepared Faculty

A Practice-Oriented Exemplar

Abstract

Background: 

Variability surrounding what practice scholarship should entail and how to incorporate into academic life exists among DNP-prepared faculty teaching across nursing programs.

Problem: 

DNP-prepared faculty entering an academic role are expected to maintain a clinical practice, teach/advise students, and fulfill service obligations, often leaving minimal time to build a program of scholarship.

Approach: 

Building upon the archetype of external mentors for PhD researchers, we introduce a new model for external mentorship for DNP-prepared faculty to facilitate scholarship.

Outcomes: 

In the first dyad to use this model, the mentor-mentee met/exceeded all contractual goals, including presentations, manuscripts, leadership behaviors, and role navigation within higher education. More external dyads are currently in development.

Conclusions: 

Securing an external, seasoned mentor as a match for a junior member of the faculty in a yearlong partnership demonstrates promise for positive change in the scholarship trajectory of DNP-prepared faculty in higher education.

Developing a scholarly identity is a process that evolves and requires mentorship.¹ A recent integrative review highlighted nurse faculty mentorship as a best practice for role acclimation and career advancement.² However, more evidence is needed to explore Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)–prepared faculty mentorship programs explicitly focusing on practice scholarship. DNP-prepared faculty have been urgently called upon to fill faculty positions across undergraduate and graduate programs; however, those faculty who are also advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) often have practice obligations and may experience heavier teaching loads to meet rising DNP program enrollment demands.

Transitioning a skilled clinician to an academic scholar takes time and development requiring mentorship.³ Typically, DNP-prepared faculty appointments are in nontenure track positions, with predominantly teaching and service responsibilities, offering limited support and resources for scholarship when compared with their PhD counterparts.⁴ Variability exists in what constitutes scholarship for DNP-prepared faculty, and development of a program of scholarship to maintain an appointment or progress in rank contributes to the persistent nursing faculty shortage.^1,3

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) defines practice scholarship as the “generation, synthesis, translation, application, and dissemination of knowledge that aims to improve health and transform healthcare.”⁵ Two examples of practice scholarship that a DNP-prepared faculty should be prepared to engage in are evidence-based practice (EBP) and quality improvement (QI).⁶ DNP programs prepare graduates to lead EBP initiatives and enable organizations to build cultures supporting evidence-based improvements to sustain quality and safety.⁷ DNP-prepared faculty are positioned to bring these added skills and values to academia through their teaching, scholarship, and service.

This article focuses on the development of DNP-prepared faculty practice scholars through a newly developed formal external scholarship mentorship model. In support of advancing improvements in nursing education, we believe DNP-prepared faculty should receive mentorship and protected workload time as determined by individual programs to develop their scholarly portfolios; there are some similarities to the tenure track but not exclusively.¹ More importantly, if DNP-prepared faculty teach and advise in DNP programs, they should be active scholars in EBP and QI methodologies. Mentorship programs designed for practice scholars may be one solution for DNP-prepared faculty scholarship achievement.⁸

Problem

When the Institute of Medicine called for an increase in the number of nursing doctorates, the profession responded, and there has been an explosion in the number of DNP programs, with 407 currently enrolling students.⁹ Novice DNP- and PhD-prepared faculty often move to the academic environment and begin the scholarship of practice or discovery. However, PhDs generally do not start teaching at the doctoral level upon graduation. DNP-prepared faculty, without teaching experience, are often immediately moved to the doctoral program. This may, in part, have to do with the education and national certification of the APRN students who are enrolled often in DNP programs. But frequently these new graduates find themselves teaching core DNP courses or overseeing the synthesis of a doctoral project without practical experience beyond their own project.

In addition, faculty prepared with a DNP may need more preparation and guidance for developing a scholarly trajectory in an academic role. DNP-prepared faculty frequently encounter challenges in meeting teaching requirements and scholarship expectations for promotion.¹⁰ When scholarship is required, often, an undue burden is placed on faculty to fulfill expectations independently without direction on how to begin. Transition from a practice setting to academia is typically difficult for novice nurse faculty who often report feelings of inadequacy and being overwhelmed.^3,11 What constitutes scholarship for a DNP-prepared faculty is often misunderstood in the first place and the guidelines for determining evaluation and promotion criteria may be skewed to the traditional research model. DNP-prepared faculty have also reported higher levels of perceived marginalization than PhD-prepared nurse faculty,¹² in part, due to these barriers.

Approach

Faculty Mentorship

In 2001, a seminal paper on establishing an external mentor program for research faculty was published in the Journal of Professional Nursing.¹³ This program matched external research mentors with faculty at the rank of Assistant and Associate Professors. With 10 dyads, 33 proposals were submitted in 2.5 years, and of those, there was a 42% funding rate by the date of publication of the article. Only one National Institutes of Health (NIH) proposal was funded, and it was from a junior investigator at the time, the third author of this article. This model, and its success, has been replicated in several different universities for PhD-prepared faculty, and it was decided that success might also be achieved with DNP-prepared faculty with a parallel model, thereby elevating the scholarly achievements of DNP-prepared faculty. In addition, the educational experiences students receive from DNP-prepared faculty and subsequent role modeling on how to be a scholar may improve.

One program developed to support nontenure track faculty was introduced at Vanderbilt University and was successful with outcomes such as proposals, various projects, manuscripts, and presentations.⁸ This program was successful, we believe, due to the availability of structured mentorship, the gift of protected workload time, project support, and fiscal support. If we are to promote DNP-prepared faculty and believe in the contributions DNP graduates provide in practice, then it is critical that the faculty teaching in these programs are experienced in the scholarship of practice.

Mentorship occurs over a set period of time where both the mentor and the mentee are committed and engaged with the mentorship process through a series of constructive interactions at set intervals.¹⁴ Engagement in strong mentorship relationships has been linked with junior faculty scholarship success for research-focused faculty mentorships.¹⁵ A systematic review highlighted the need for nontenure track nursing faculty (including DNPs) to participate in planned mentoring programs and strategies unique to their clinically focused role and abilities.¹⁴

Focused resources and time to engage in practice scholarship have been cited as essential components of mentorship for clinically focused faculty.¹⁶ The effectiveness of an external scholarship mentor for DNP-prepared faculty had yet to be discovered. However, building upon the model of external mentors for PhD researchers and in the spirit of parity, we present a parallel model for mentoring DNP-prepared faculty.

Program Goal

DNP-prepared faculty are called upon to lead, teach, and advise across undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. To produce high-caliber nursing graduates who “improve health and transform health care,” DNP-prepared faculty should actively engage in the “scholarship of practice” as defined by the AACN.⁵

Because of scholarship variability among DNP-prepared faculty, one south central College of Nursing invested in a funded external mentorship program to advance DNP-prepared faculty productivity and role modeling of practice scholarship. This article describes, to our knowledge, the first unique piloted external mentorship program focusing on practice scholarship for DNP-prepared faculty. With the aims of improved practice scholarship engagement, productivity, and student role modeling, this new mentoring model included structured one-on-one monthly consultations using an adapted Appreciative Advising Framework (AAF).¹⁷

Strategy

DNP-prepared faculty were offered the opportunity to apply for a yearlong external scholarship mentor that aligned with their practice scholarship goals. Application for the program was voluntary and workload release was not immediately promised. To apply for the program, potential mentees were required to articulate their planned program of scholarship in writing and include a listing of their record of current scholarship pursuits. The program was operationalized out of the office of the Associate Dean (AD) for Research and Scholarship at the direction of the Dean. Potential DNP mentees were permitted to self-identify a mentor or be matched by suggestions from the AD. The mentor-mentee match focused on the type of teaching institution, scholarly productivity, strengths, expertise, and individualized mentee needs and goals. The mentor-mentee dyad introduction was facilitated by the AD at the mentee's college based on the model outlined by the Dean of the College of Nursing.

Mentee-Mentor Match and Program Contract

The first mentee to be selected (first author) identified a DNP-prepared clinical professor and DNP Program Chair at a large R1 University located in a southeast region College of Nursing to serve as the first mentor (second author). The mentor is a nationally recognized expert in EBP and QI methodologies and has taught or led in these methods extensively across all levels of nursing education and clinical practice. In addition, the mentor has vast experience advising nursing students (primarily DNPs), mentoring new faculty in tenure and nontenure track promotions, and academic and clinical mentoring in EBP and QI projects. The mentee became aware of the mentor's academic and practice scholarship background by exploring the mentor's publications, presentations, and academic expertise through professional inquiry. Following identification of the mentor, the mentee was directed by the AD to reach out to the mentor, include current CV (curriculum vitae), and rationale for the mentorship request. The mentor conveyed interest in being paired with the mentee who then worked in conjunction with the Dean, AD, and the mentor to adapt the first contract (formal written agreement) from the PhD-prepared model to reflect DNP-specific scholarship terms and goals (Table 1).

Table 1. - Sample DNP-Prepared Faculty Mentorship Contract Verbiage and Content

The primary goals for the DNP-prepared mentee include (1) expansion of a knowledge base on the scholarship of practice—what it entails, how to do it, and how to secure necessary resources; (2) completion of 1 or more faculty workshops in a train-the-trainer model; and (3) production of scholarly outcomes, both collaboratively with and independent of the mentor.

An aspirational goal: Seek Evidence-Based Practice certification—EBP-C

Throughout the year, the mentor will: Meet with the mentee at least once per month via telephone or videoconference. Discussion during these sessions may include best practices for teaching and the role of the academic, discussions about various types of scholarship opportunities, how to establish a coherent and sustainable program of scholarship, work on a scholarly paper or presentation, and guidance on a realistic and attainable 5-y scholarship plan. Both the mentor and the mentee have defined responsibilities and accountability to the relationship. An attachment to the contract that outlines these responsibilities is recommended. Consultations with mentee on at least 2 publications. If consultation on publications rises to the level of shared authorship (per the Institutional Authorship Policy), the mentor will be listed as a coauthor. It is hoped that the mentoring relationship will be beneficial to both the mentor and the mentee; shared authorship is negotiated up front. When the mentor and the mentee are in attendance at the same conference (eg, AACN), they will allocate some time to meet in person for coffee, lunch, or dinner. Time permitting, the mentor will introduce the mentee to notables in the field. Opportunity to work on a project together in person is extremely valuable.

Abbreviations: AACN, American Association of Colleges of Nursing; DNP, Doctor of Nursing Practice.

On request to enter into a contractual agreement, the mentor ensured there were no institutional conflicts between the mentor-mentee's universities and garnered support from the mentor's Executive AD of Academic Affairs, who agreed that the external mentorship provided excellent scholarship and service opportunities for the mentor. The pre-mentorship contract with mutually decided upon scholarship deliverables was secured and included a $1000 per diem for the mentor for a 1-year contract. In anticipation of expansion of the program, the Dean secured a large grant to cover the potential cost for long-term sustainability anticipating addition of several dyads, workload release for protected time, and support for the dyads to attend meetings together for dissemination.

The mentor and mentee agreed to meet at least monthly, meet at a professional meeting(s), write together, and copresent together. Each contract will differ depending on the mentor's expertise and the mentee's goals. The mentor serves as a gateway to leaders in the field and new ways of thinking and should introduce the mentee to notables in the field. Ideally, throughout the mentorship period, the mentee would share lessons learned with their home institution for the purpose of group faculty development. These education sessions could occur in a brown bag luncheon, formal presentation, or other formats. An added clause in the contract may include a visit to the mentee's university by the mentor for a presentation and an even broader impact on the faculty as a whole.

Mentorship Framework

The mentor conceptualized the initial mentorship by deferring to past strategies with tenure track and clinical track faculty and adapting an AAF approach,¹⁸ which has been successful in faculty advisement of DNP students.¹⁹ Although the AAF's original intent was for student advisement, George^17(p1) proposed that higher education administrators adapt the framework for mentoring academic faculty in career and goal attainment. The framework includes 6 phases a mentor-mentee dyad can follow for building a collaborative relationship toward optimizing the mentee's experiences and potential in creating a plan to achieve academic dreams and goals.¹⁷Table 2 represents the 6 phases of the adapted AAF and its application to the external scholarship mentorship model.

Table 2. - Adapting the AA Framework in an External Scholarship Mentorship Program^a

Six Phases of AA	Mentor Role	Mentoring Approach
Disarm	The mentor makes a positive first impression and creates a safe and welcoming environment for the mentee.	-The mentor requested and reviewed the mentee's CV. -The mentor requested the mentee's promotion scholarship criteria for aspirational rank. -The mentor and the mentee shared their personal and professional history and experiences. -The mentor observed and complimented the mentee for their immediate eagerness to learn.
Discover	The mentor builds a rapport and focuses on the mentee's strengths, skills, and abilities.	-The mentor acknowledged the mentee's well-established publication background. -The mentor assessed the mentee's self-identified knowledge/skill deficits in EBP and QI methodologies and DNP student project advisement.
Dream	The mentor questions the mentee about their hopes and dreams for their future academic career. Short- and long-term goals are set.	-The mentee sought to improve self-identified knowledge/skill deficits in EBP, QI, and DNP project advisement. -The mentor offered avenues for the mentee to meet their goals through recommended EBP and QI workshops, obtaining EBP certification and application to a DNP postdoctoral EBP fellowship.
Design	The mentor and the mentee co-collaborate in creating a plan to ensure the mentee's success in achieving their goals.	-The mentor and the mentee reviewed the contractual agreement and codeveloped a plan for scholarship deliverables that capitalized on the mentee's experiences and knowledge acquisition throughout the mentorship program.
Deliver	The mentor continues to provide ongoing support and encouragement to the mentee as they implement the plan.	-In between monthly meetings, the mentor would email, text, or call the mentee to check on progress or share new beneficial information.
Don't settle	The mentor celebrates with the mentee as goals are met and encourages the importance of the mentee to create new aspirational goals.	-The mentee-mentor dyad met or exceeded all contractual goals. -The mentor and the mentee copresented at a national academic meeting in Jan 2023. This was the first opportunity the dyad met in person. -The mentor and the mentee spent time networking and discussing the mentee's next steps with the conclusion of the mentorship program. -Close collaboration between the mentee and the mentor remains.

Abbreviations: AA, Appreciative Advising; DNP, Doctor of Nursing Practice; EBP, evidence-based practice; QI, quality improvement.

^aAdapted from George.¹⁷ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Initial Meeting

Following review of the mentee's CV, the mentor requested to meet with the mentee 1 month before the yearlong mentorship contract commenced. The mentor understood the importance of acknowledging the mission and vision of the mentee's college, including appointment, evaluation, and promotion criteria, and requested a copy of the mentee's promotion guidelines to ensure alignment with the mutually agreed-upon contractual scholarship goals and the mentee's aim in aspirational rank.

Mentor Assessment of Mentee Knowledge and Skill Gaps

The mentor assessed the mentee's self-identified knowledge/skill gaps during the subsequent meeting. The mentee was new to the DNP program faculty role and disclosed the need to gain expertise in EBP and QI methodologies. The mentor did not assume that because the mentee was DNP-prepared, mastery of EBP and QI knowledge and skill competency had been attained. In general, deficiencies in nursing faculty knowledge and skill proficiency in EBP and QI vary widely and are identified as a contributor to the inconsistencies in the quality and rigor of DNP student projects.²⁰

As a current DNP Program Chair, the mentor examined a de-identified DNP student's project presentation with the mentee. The mentor identified gaps in EBP and QI knowledge when the mentee required assistance in identifying flaws in the DNP project model, design, implementation, and evaluation. Likewise, the mentee self-recognized gaps in knowledge and requested additional EBP and QI resources to review before each mentorship meeting. The mentor suggested that the mentee acquire specific foundational EBP and QI textbooks, and a compilation of articles was sent to the mentee by the mentor incrementally. During each mentorship session, the mentee would select an EBP, QI, or DNP curricular topic to review with the mentor. In addition, the mentor recommended completing a virtual self-paced EBP basics course (https://fuld.nursing.osu.edu/ebp-basics-free-online-course) and accessing instructional videos and tool kits on the principles for designing and conducting QI projects from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement website (https://www.ihi.org/), all available at no cost.

Identifying the needs or knowledge gaps of the mentee at the outset of the formal mentoring relationship is vital. From the initial assessment, the mentor and the mentee customized a plan to maximize the mentee's knowledge and skills in EBP, QI, and DNP student project advisement and identified topics for future scholarship deliverables.

Academic and Scholarship Advancement

With knowledge of the mentee's specific practice scholarship needs, guidance on establishing viable and realistic 1- and 5-year scholarship plans were cocreated by the mentee and the mentor. Practice scholarship goals had to align with the mentee's pursuit of aspirational rank to clinical associate professor and the mentorship contract. Since the basis of promotion in rank is a tripartite mission of teaching, scholarship, and service, the mentor was able to provide practical tips to the mentee for successfully navigating the academic culture.

The mentor should also share their familiarity with various practice scholarship opportunities targeting DNP-prepared faculty. For example, early in the mentorship course, the mentor urged the mentee to apply for a postdoctoral fellowship in EBP. The highly competitive fellowship is the only DNP postdoctoral fellowship currently available in EBP and was unknown to the mentee. Not only did the mentor recognize that the fellowship could catapult the mentee's practice scholarship footprint but this award would also offer a mechanism to attend, co-facilitate and facilitate intensive academic and practice EBP immersions, and provide a direct pathway to sit for the new national EBP certification.

Contractual Goals

The mentor-mentee met or exceeded all contractual goals in the first dyad to use this new model.

Knowledge

A variety of types of knowledge were gained: empirical, expert, procedural, contextual, and political. On the mentor's recommendation, the mentee also attended self-paced implementation science modules to broaden understanding of the scientific research methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of EBP. The mentee also facilitated a well-received college-wide faculty forum on lessons learned during the mentorship sessions. Several PhD- and DNP-prepared faculty members commented that the forum helped them grow in their understanding of EBP and QI.

Professional Achievements

A primary goal of the mentorship program was for the mentee to expand EBP and QI knowledge and expertise to enrich practice scholarship and student role modeling. This primary goal was met through award of the funded DNP postdoctoral fellowship in EBP. In addition, the mentee was one of the first 100 health care professionals to become certified in evidence-based practice (EBP-C) with guidance from the mentor. The mentee also successfully applied for early promotion in rank and became the first DNP-prepared faculty to receive a college-wide nursing excellence in scholarship award. The mentor-mentee submitted 3 coauthored manuscripts for publication (2 accepted and 1 under review) and copresented a podium presentation at a national doctoral education conference. Immediately following the mentorship, with authorship and process support from the mentee, the mentee's DNP student project was accepted for publication.

Mutual Benefits

Several intangible benefits for the mentee-mentor resulted from this initial external mentorship program. The mentee experienced an awakening to what practice scholarship contributions could be disseminated with the home institution. The timely opportunity to gain experiential knowledge from a seasoned DNP educator was of incalculable value, and new ways to conduct meaningful practice scholarship were identified. The mentee appreciated the synergic enhancement of lessons learned as scholarship informs teaching and ensured relevance. Ultimately, the mentee recognized that decades could have elapsed without accessing necessary EBP and QI knowledge/skills learned via the mentor, already transcending the initial mentorship to indirectly benefit other faculty members and students at the mentee's home institution.

As a result of participating in the mentorship program, the mentor's scholarship and service productivity grew and the mentor experienced renewed professional satisfaction. Mentoring others in achieving their scholarship goals is often a standard criterion for evaluation and promotion in nontenure or tenure track appointments, especially at the rank of professor, as was the case for this mentor. Therefore, external scholarship mentoring may enhance the mentor's scholarship and service requirements depending on the mentor's institutional criterion. Furthermore, the mentor had the opportunity to collaborate and reestablish personal scholarship interests while sharing knowledge and expertise with an enthusiastic mentee promoting legacy building.

Limitations

A formal external scholarship mentor program for DNP-prepared faculty does not appear to currently exist beyond this exemplar, and there are no longitudinal outcomes. Because of potential workload demands between the dyad, there is a risk of failed mentor-mentee connection with poor communication, incivility, or unavailability for engagement.² Therefore, administrative support is critical to ensure protected time and resources for the dyad,⁶ including a mechanism for the formal evaluation of the mentoring experience.² A potential lack of experienced external practice scholarship mentors may exist since this is a new model for DNP-prepared faculty mentoring. An increasing long-term cost burden may occur if the mentorship program is not funded. In a systematic review by Van Schyndel et al,⁶ administrative securement of start-up funding was critical to the success of scholarship mentoring programs.

Discussion

In a recent comparative study, more than half (56.3%) of PhDs surveyed and more than one-third (36%) of DNPs reported having published at least one article in a peer-reviewed journal since obtaining their doctorates. PhDs reported larger numbers of publications than DNPs (9.8 and 3.4, respectively).²¹ However, disseminating noteworthy clinical scholarship outcomes is increasing and remains critical for the profession's movement forward for contributions to the stability and efficacy of the health care system quality and safety.^22,23 Mentoring is essential to facilitate faculty skill building, scholarship, and career development in academia, and a lack of mentorship is frequently cited as a barrier to scholarly productivity.²⁴ DNP-prepared faculty require mentorship from experienced DNP practice scholars to establish or enhance their programs of scholarship.

Internal peer scholarship mentoring is associated with increased scholarly productivity, promise toward boosting promotion and tenure success, increased job satisfaction, and professional fulfillment.^2,3 But expanding DNP-prepared faculty mentorship programs outside one's home institution may bring a new, more robust perspective, particularly in institutions that need strength in the scholarship of practice. For the mentorship program's sustainability, we suggest creating a tool kit that includes standardized contract templates, tips for mentees on finding a mentor, and mentorship strategies for the mentor. In this program example, the mentor adapted the 6 phases of the AAF as the dyad mentoring model^17,18; a further inquiry into this approach's efficacy should be considered. Upon reflection, we believe the initial consultation before the official formation of the mentorship relationship should be mandatory and include a review of the mentee's promotion criteria to ensure institutional alignment.

Conclusion

Aspirational rank promotion is an expected outcome of PhD-prepared, external research-focused mentor-mentee relationships, which should be equitable for the DNP-prepared faculty external mentorship model. Kesten et al⁷ raised a question: Are we measuring the proper scholarship outcomes? Dissemination in its many forms must be the hallmark of practice scholarship, but DNP graduates should not have expectations to do research or seek NIH funding. A skilled mentor in practice scholarship will have this awareness and guide the DNP-prepared faculty mentee appropriately. Exploration needs to continue in what constitutes clinical practice scholarship while also focusing on the 3 areas of mentorship that have been deemed most valuable: good communication; support at the highest administrative levels; and role modeling.^2,25

Mentorship includes goal setting, learning to think like a scholar, networking, identifying external resources, and role modeling. Research on nurse faculty mentorship is increasing yet remains in its infancy.² Further research is needed to identify which interventions best support academia's cultural transformation in mentoring practice scholars.⁶ Securing expert scholarship mentoring partnerships holds promise to positively change the scholarship trajectory of DNP-prepared faculty in higher education. Organizational resources and administrative support are needed to enhance the impacts of practice scholarship.⁷ To lead, educate, and teach the next generation of nursing practice scholars, we must have faculty who understand the scholarship of the nursing discipline and are scholars in their own right.