Getting Away from "Busy"

Despite what those outside schools of nursing may think, faculty members do not sit around all day discussing nursing theory. Faculty members are required to teach (whether in the classroom, online, in a clinical setting or the skills lab), participate in curriculum evaluation and development, engage in service and/or committee activities, disseminate scholarly products, advise students and so forth. Add on top of these standing obligations the difficulty of educating and communicating with students in distance accessible programs. With competing demands on faculty, students are often the recipients of the four letter word, busy. When students feel neglected due to busy faculty schedules, it is time to reevaluate. One answer to this problem is to hire more educators, but then is the problem of pesky budgets and availability of qualified faculty. Another option is having faculty do nothing but teach, to small classes and students who “get it”. And then there is the option most often chosen; tell our students how busy we are and expect them to adapt. It is clear that none of the options presented are acceptable yet we allow one to prevail. This has become a critical issue in distance education where students are often at the end of an email and an electronically submitted assignment. Working smarter through use of multiple approaches can facilitate more timely, efficient and desirable communications with students. The focus here is on students in distance accessible programs; however are also applicable in communication with onsite students and colleagues. Being proactive within courses, monitoring open discussion for confusion discussed among students, holding open office hours online and archiving for all students, and providing an introduction to common issues within the course are only a few quick examples of being more efficient. Despite best efforts, there will still be communication issues which are often handled in a string of emails. Learn strategies to avoid these situations and how to identify when email is not enough. Implementation of these strategies contributes to increased efficiency and decreased frustration for faculty and positive engaging educational experiences for students.