Jul 15, 0201

Wisconsin Education Incentive Grant Wraps-up

The $3.2 million Nurses for Wisconsin initiative, funded through a 2013-2015 UW System incentive grant, invested in nurses to help them advance their degrees and teach at leading UW System nursing programs. Four universities in the UW System: UW-Eau Claire, UW-Madison, UW-Milwaukee, UW Oshkosh offered pre-doctoral Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and PhD fellowships, postdoctoral fellowships and a loan repayment program to encourage nurses to pursue doctoral degrees or postdoctoral training and assume nurse educator positions in Wisconsin. In return, awardees made a three-year commitment to teach within the UW System. The purpose of the project was threefold: 1) increase the number of nursing faculty available across the UW System, 2) support nursing enrollments, and 3) mitigate projections for unprecedented shortage of registered nurses in the state. The project clearly was a success. Fifty-two individuals who received funding or loan forgiveness are either teaching or in the pipeline to become nurse educators due to this effort. The infusion of these additional nurse educators to the UW System nursing faculty core will make a substantial contribution to alleviating the nursing shortage in Wisconsin. Read the full report.