2020

Colleagues, the NLN remains the leader in nursing education.

Member engagement continues to be our strength and our most valuable commodity. Thank you to the thousands of nurse educators involved with the NLN. You are the backbone of our work to bring resources to all our members who teach in programs across the academic spectrum.

The NLN has great news about our members and their work on behalf of the NLN/Chamberlain University School of Nursing Center for the Advancement of the Science for Nursing Education. We have two 2020 NLN Press publications that will be released during the Summit, including:

• Clinical Simulations in Nursing: From Conceptualization to Evaluation (3rd Edition); Dr. Pamela Jeffries, editor.

• Critical Conversations, Moving from Monologue to Dialogue; Drs. Susan Forneris and Mary Fey are the editors. This is a follow-up to their first book, Critical Conversations: The Guide for Teaching Thinking.

Plus, a special Summit themed issue of the NLN’s Nursing Education Perspectives, or NEP, publishing the research focused on the recommendations of the IOM Future of Nursing Report, 10 years later, edited by Dr. Susan Hassmiller, Audrey Beauvais, and Teresa Shellenbarger. You can find this available at NEPonline.net. A call for manuscripts for the 2021 special Summit edition remains open until January 2021. This issue will be focused on workforce issues; call for manuscripts is already underway. Finally, this year Dr. Barbara Patterson assumed the role of editor for NEP. We thank Dr. Joyce Fitzpatrick for her extraordinary service as editor for many years.

 

The NLN Certification Department now offers two certifications for academic nurse educators. Since 2005, over 7,600 academic nurse educators have earned the credential of Certified Nurse Educator, or CNE. This credential measures excellence as an academic nurse educator, practicing in the full scope of the role. In the past year, 625 nurse educators were added to the certification roster.

In recognition of the thousands of academic nurse educators, who practice as a clinical educator only, or adjunct or preceptor, or one of the other titles referring to the same role of being with students during clinical experiences, a second academic nurse educator certification exam was created. We are proud to report that during the past year, 106 clinical nurse educators have earned the credential of CNEcl.

And now for an update on NLN Testing Services. “Fluid and flexible” is the motto for our Testing department this fall. As we readied for the fall testing season, Testing Services has built in a remote record and review option for all exams to allow for seamless testing on campus or by remote. Our focus has been to provide the best uninterrupted services we could offer. 

Dr. Ronald Sibert has joined the NLN as senior business director. He will be assuming oversight of NLN Testing Services and helping the NLN grow our business in many different ways. Dr. Sibert is an accomplished higher education administrator and nonprofit executive with more than 20 years of experience working across sectors internationally. Prior to joining the NLN, he served as the director of market development and initially as the strategic alliance director at the Graduate Management Admission Council. While there, he established organizational linkages in the U.S., Canada, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and Africa that catalyzed expansion of the Council’s standardized testing markets around the world.

For the fall semester, we have several new Testing products and services, including the launch of our new exam called H.O.P.E. – our brand new Health Occupations Placement Exam. Additionally, our NCLEX Live Reviews went virtual last spring and continue through the fall for the safety of faculty, staff, and students. We have even added a one-day virtual review for direct purchase by students. The NLN Testing Team is dedicated to supporting the needs of our customers and students to the best of our ability.  

This has also been another banner year for the NLN’ s communications and marketing outreach. Colleagues, we have a new visual look for the NLN. Earlier this year, the Communications Department--led by Communications Director Mike Keaton with Creative Designer India West and Marketing and Communications Manager Nikki Brown--began working with an outside design firm to overhaul the NLN's logo and branding. The goal was to create a new, more modern logo that reflects the history and mission of the NLN while being more appealing to current and prospective nurse educators.

 

As you can see, the new logo features the NLN name in a bold, bright blue color. The "for" is italicized in a shade of yellow to stand out and emphasize that this is the National League for Nursing, not "of" nursing, as it is sometimes mistakenly called. To the left of the name is the NLN's acronym in a fun design element topped by an open book, illustrating the educational nature of the association.

 

We believe this logo represents a bold, more contemporary take on the NLN as it is today. Other graphics and the new color scheme will be unveiled through the end of the year. We hope you will be excited as we are about this new direction for the NLN. 

Next, for the NLN elections, we encourage you all, including licensed practical nurses, or LPNs, and Associate Degree, baccalaureate, masters, DNP and PhD Nurses to nominate people or yourselves for leadership positions within the NLN. We value your experience, knowledge and leadership skills that can only enhance the NLN as the Voice for Nursing Education, so please nominate and vote in our next year’s election!

A word about the importance of elections, colleagues. As you know, this will be a big election in the history of our country, as we vote for candidates at the local, state, congressional, and presidential levels. As the most trusted professionals in the delivery of health care, nurses have much to contribute to public policy and conversations, plus actions around the future of health care. Our insights carry weight; our needs reflect the needs of the people we serve and heal, and must be taken seriously. 

So, as we approach Election Day during this public health crisis, please consider the safest way to cast your vote. Every state allows a number of mail-in or early voting alternatives. States are also looking at how to provide socially distant in-person voting. See your options at USA.gov/voting. 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unprecedented pain, grief, and destruction to the health and well-being of our nation’s citizens and economy. Thus far there have been almost 7 million confirmed cases in the U.S. that have resulted in over 200,000 deaths. The health care professionals on the front lines of this pandemic have been stretched beyond their limits. Kudos to all essential workers. We are saving lives every day.

COVID-19 is unlikely to be the last pandemic our world faces. Nurses and other frontline health care professionals will always be at greater risk than others, and the stakes are higher than ever this year. We understand the many challenges that continue to face our country and that nurses continue to answer the call to meet the demands of our nation’s health and safety, from rural towns to urban centers. With over 4 million nurses nationwide, there is truly power in our voice. So, this year, during the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, exercise your power by going from the front lines to the voting lines to cast your ballot in the 2020 election.

Speaking of the COVID-19 pandemic, as you have probably experienced, there has been an even greater shift to virtual education, which was becoming increasingly common even before the pandemic struck. COVID-19, of course, has accelerated that shift.

Although online education is nothing new, the NLN has been trying to get faculty to get back to some of the basics on good teaching by focusing on student learning outcomes, and teaching and learning strategies that assist in achieving the specific learning objectives being sought. This may mean, for example, designing tighter lesson plans; providing more opportunity to engage learners in remote activities that have them solving problems; and using the content and working together, with the educator “guiding” those conversations. 

Expanding on our popular Taking Aim webinar series this spring, we have designed three new and upcoming webinars that focus on just that: how educators have used good teaching and learning around the domains of cognitive, psychosocial, and affective, and transformed their online classrooms.

You can find these free webinars by visiting NLN.org; just click on our Coronavirus Resource Center. You can find previous Taking Aim webinars there—free for download too. As always, we with you, your family, and your colleagues wish you all the best as we work our way together through this public health crisis.