Leadership 2.0: Nursing's Next Generation: Lessons Learned on Increasing Nursing Student Diversity

Colleges and universities are pivotal to successful efforts aimed at achieving greater nursing workforce diversity. In 2013, the College of Nursing at the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio, introduced a multi-faceted program that supports underrepresented racial/ethnic minority and disadvantaged students throughout the four years of the nursing baccalaureate curriculum. The Leadership 2.0: Nursing’s Next Generation program has achieved impressive gains in the recruitment, retention, and academic performance of program participants. This article describes key program components and strategies that ensure an integrated program structure. Lessons learned are discussed, including factors that have contributed to the program’s success and its ability to meet the academic, professional development, socialization, and financial needs of underrepresented and disadvantaged students.

Empowered by Cultural Identity and Catalyzed by Resilience: A Path to Support American Indian Nursing Student Success

Since the early 1990s, the Institute of Medicine has identified the need to increase the number of ethnic minority nurses to improve access to care and eliminate health disparities in these populations (Institute of Medicine, 1994, 2011). American Indians (AI) and Alaska Natives endure the highest rates of poverty, depression, addiction, suicide, domestic violence, and diabetes in the United States (Sarche & Spicer, 2008). With the disadvantages AIs face, nursing schools have difficulty recruiting, retaining, and graduating AI nursing students. Based on the guidance needed by AI nursing students, a program called Niganawenimaanaanig was specifically designed to provide holistic support for these students to improve their chances of successfully completing the baccalaureate nursing program. This program, funded through a Health Resource Services Administration Nursing Workforce Diversity grant, was begun at Bemidji State University in Minnesota, proximal to three of the largest Ojibwe reservations in the state. Once enrolled in Niganawenimaanaanig, students are provided comprehensive care within a unique cultural, academic, and social support framework. Tuition scholarships and monthly stipends provide crucial financial relief to students once they are accepted into the 4-year prelicensure or RN-to-BS nursing programs. In Niganawenimaanaanig's first 2 years, the number of AI students declaring nursing as a major increased by over 600%, and the program has retained 100% of their prenursing freshmen. At the heart of Niganawenimaanaanig is a grounding in AI culture that empowers and fosters resilience among nursing students, which is a relevant and recreatable concept for schools seeking to recruit and retain ethnic minority nursing students.

Use of Service Learning to Increase Master’s-Level Nursing Students’ Understanding of Social Determinants of Health and Health Disparities

Introduction: It is important for graduate-level nursing students to be competent in the issues involved in the social determinants of health and health disparities and have the tools to address them as graduates. Method: As part of a nursing workforce diversity program, master’s-level nursing students were required to participate in a service learning project exposing them to an issue not directly linked to health—long bus rides for students as a result of school consolidations—to achieve educational goals and objectives while providing a service to an advocacy agency. Results: Eighteen students completed the project, providing the advocacy agency with firsthand accounts about the impact of long bus rides and in-depth reviews of literature on the topic and laws and regulations of other states. Conclusion: These results further support providing nursing students opportunities to fully engage with multicultural communities to gain a broader understanding of health disparities and social determinants of health.