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Background: The nurse faculty shortage hampers the capacity of the nursing workforce to respond to the demands of the evolving health care system. As a strategy to address the shortage in New Jersey, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation implemented the New Jersey Nursing Initiative Faculty Preparation Program to prepare nurses for the faculty role. This article highlights program implementation successes and challenges, scholar and faculty perceptions of the program, and provides recommendations for others interested in preparing nurse faculty., Methods: This evaluation uses data from scholar surveys and focus groups, interviews with grantees, and grantee reports., Results: Findings suggest that a program that includes generous monetary support, socialization to the nurse faculty role, and formal education courses produces graduates who readily assume a faculty position and are committed to at least a part-time career in nursing education., Conclusions: This evaluation emphasizes the need to carefully design programs that integrate faculty preparation and advanced clinical training., (Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The New Jersey Nursing Initiative was publically launched in 2009 as a 5-year, $22 million program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation based at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Foundation. It was reauthorized in 2011 through 2016 for an additional $8.5 million. The initiative includes a faculty preparation program and strategic tracks of work focusing on building education capacity, increasing current faculty capacity, making nurse faculty a preferred career, leading policy initiatives, creating sustainable funding in support of nursing education, and ultimately, building local, regional, and statewide collaborative networks. The tagline, "So a Nurse will be there for You," emphasizes both the reality of an aging nursing workforce needing replacement and the expected health care transformation that will result in the need for new knowledge and skills in the future nursing workforce. The purpose of this article was to describe the New Jersey Nursing Initiative, emphasizing the partnerships that have resulted from the project to date., (Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The clinical nurse leader, a master's-educated nurse generalist, may hold promise for advancing evidence-based patient care.