June 21, 2005 – Susan Hammons

New nursing funding earmarked for SFA
- Staples successfully advocated for funding for rural nursing program -

NACOGDOCHES -- State Sen. Todd Staples announced an additional $1.7 million for a rural nursing initiative at Stephen F. Austin State University. This new funding will be used to hire additional full-time faculty and provide other support for increased enrollment in the nursing program to provide more nursing graduates.

"SFA is to be applauded for its initiative to educate and train more nurses," said Staples, R-Palestine. "Nurses who are trained in rural areas tend to remain in rural areas. This funding will provide additional nurses who are sorely needed in rural East Texas. I appreciate the members of the Legislature who helped fund this important program."

The university’s Division of Nursing will receive $843,260 a year for two years through the special item funding.

Dr. Tito Guerrero III, SFA president, said, “We are delighted to learn that the Texas Legislature has seen fit to support our program in nursing. This special item funding will strengthen and enhance SFA’s ability to increase the number of nursing graduates and thereby help us to better respond to the nursing shortages that exist in this region of the state.”

According to a 2004 Texas Department of State Health Services report, hospitals in Texas’ rural-non-border region, which includes East Texas, had an average registered nurse vacancy rate of 11.9 percent. This was the state’s second highest vacancy rate behind the metropolitan border region’s 12.9 percent. If the average vacancy rate of 8.6 percent for the state were applied to all 537 Texas hospitals, there would have been 7,100 RN vacancies in February 2004, the report said.

In 2001, 80 nursing programs in Texas were producing 5,000 graduates each year, said Dr. Glenda Walker, director of the SFA Division of Nursing. To address the shortage, the Legislature set a goal of doubling the number of graduates by 2007.

Prior to 2002, SFA admitted 40 nursing students per year. The university increased the number to 80 beginning that year. This fall the number will increase again, to 120 per year, meaning 240 students will be studying nursing at any one time.

A Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board survey found that nursing programs turned away 4,200 unduplicated qualified applicants in 2003. In spring 2005, SFA received 125 applications for 60 nursing slots for the fall semester. Walker expects that number to grow. “Word hasn’t gotten out yet that we have increased the number admitted to nursing,” she said.

Texas Board of Nurse Examiners rules mandate that only 10 students at a time can be in a clinical setting like a hospital with an instructor, she said, “to assure patient safety, which is our primary responsibility as nurses.”

Yet, salaries hinder nursing schools’ ability to attract faculty. “Part of it is the disparity between what nursing pays and what the service side pays,” Walker said. Indeed, the Coordinating Board survey found nursing deans and directors view the disparity between faculty salaries and what nurses earn in practice as the chief barrier to hiring.

“This additional funding will allow the SFA nursing program to hire additional faculty to maintain the necessary 10-to-one student-to-instructor clinical ratio and increase salaries so that we can be competitive for faculty with other nursing programs in the state of Texas,” she said.

“We are lucky at SFA because the Board of Regents and the university administration have recognized the importance of a qualified, stable faculty,” Walker said. “They have always approved additional faculty positions in order for us to increase.

“And Senator Staples not only has been instrumental in increasing nursing enrollments at SFA, but has been a strong advocate for nursing throughout the state of Texas.”