BILL ANALYSIS
By: Nelson
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Currently, the nursing shortage in Texas is exacerbated by a shortage of quality nursing faculty. Nursing schools have difficulty recruiting and retaining faculty, as many practicing nurses make higher salaries than faculty and wish to remain in active practice.
S.B. 289 encourages nursing schools to utilize more part-time or adjunct faculty by allowing professional nursing shortage reduction grants to be used for part-time faculty. This will help schools recruit nurses to serve as faculty who wish to remain in practice but also have a desire to teach.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
This bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to any state officer, department, agency, or institution.
ANALYSIS
SECTION 1. Amends Section 61.9623(a), Education Code, to require grant funds from the professional nursing shortage reduction program to be used towards identifying, developing, or implementing innovative methods to make the most effective use of certain resources, including using preceptors or part-time faculty to provide clinical institution in order to address the need for qualified faculty to accommodate, rather than to reduce the number of new faculty needed to accommodate, increased student enrollment in the professional nursing program.
SECTION 2. Effective date.
EFFECTIVE DATE
Upon passage, or, if the Act does not receive the necessary vote, the Act takes effect September 1, 2007.