Utilizing Program Champions and a Learning Management System for Accreditation: Innovative Strategies to Enhance Faculty Engagement

Background:Nursing program accreditation ensures quality nursing education and care to communities at large. The accreditation process is often stressful with limited faculty engagement. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to use innovative strategies to enhance faculty engagement in the accreditation process. These innovative approaches facilitate faculty development through the accreditation process by integrating work as part of the faculty role. Using active learning strategies enhances faculty engagement, provides faculty development, and encourages faculty to practice at their full-scope of the academic nurse educator role.Method:Utilizing Kotter\u27s 8-step process to accelerate change, a leadership team of faculty and administration formed to implement a new accreditation process. Kotter emphasizes the use of change agents. Therefore, each of the seven degree programs nominated a faculty-champion outside the existing leadership. Champions are change agents to bridge communication between faculty and the leadership team. The systematic process was conceptualized as a book with each accreditation standard written as a chapter. All faculty are enrolled in a learning management system course where each module contains the instructions, support, and assignments for each accreditation requirement. These modules will be combined to write our self-study book.Results:Data is being collected from the learning management system to track faculty engagement and identify gaps. At the end of the accreditation cycle, a survey and key informant interviews will be completed and analyzed to evaluate faculty engagement and faculty understanding of the accreditation standards alignment with program outcomes.Conclusion:Accreditation presents a sense of urgency and stress. Kotter\u27s change process is guiding our department through an innovative quality improvement project utilizing diverse new leaders as champions, with a goal of inspiring faculty engagement and creating a meaningful, sustainable process. This process could be replicated in other nursing programs to further the goals of accreditation