Recruitment and Retention of Minority Students: Diversity in Nursing Education

Abstract

A culturally diverse nursing workforce is essential to meet the health needs of an increasingly diverse Canadian population. The recruitment and retention of nursing students representing diverse backgrounds are vital to the building of this diversified work force. Studies have shown that diversity within the student body benefits everyone. For example, students who study and work within a diverse environment are better able to understand and consider multiple perspectives and to appreciate the benefits inherent in diversity. This paper describes one school of nursing's project on the Recruitment and Retention of Black students into their Bachelor of Science Nursing (BScN) Program. The project goals are to increase diversity, foster student learning, and ultimately improve health care for the Black community. Presented in this paper are the project background, implementation process, challenges and outcomes. This may provide learned lessons and future directions for similar initiatives in other institutions.

Minority nursing students’ perception of their baccalaureate program

“…A more culturally diverse nursing work force can increase health care access and quality in ethnically diverse populations [2][3][4][5] . The National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice (NACNEP) convened the Expert Workgroup on Diversity to advise the NACNEP on development of a national agenda for increasing workforce diversity.…”

“…Among the identified factors contributing to the lack of diversity in the nursing workforce include recruitment and retention of minorities, lack of diverse faculty and students, feelings of exclusion and alienation, academic and financial difficulties, and lack of adequate social support. Review of the literature indicates that these factors affect the success of minority nursing students and contribute to the high attrition rate [3,4,8,12,15] .…”

AACP Special Taskforce White Paper on Diversifying Our Investment in Human Capital

“…25,26 The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Interprofessional Health Post-Baccalaureate Certificate Program, a yearlong program designed for those needing a stronger academic foundation than their current undergraduate coursework has provided, is recommended for applicants who have previously been unsuccessful in gaining admission to a college or school of pharmacy. The program targets students from disadvantaged backgrounds, underserved communities, and those individuals whose backgrounds are traditionally underrepresented in the pharmacy profession.…”

A review of minority recruitment and retention models implemented in undergraduate nursing programs

“…(AACN, 2011) A more diverse nursing workforce increases health care access and quality in ethnically diverse populations [8,19,21] . Increasing diversity in the healing professions is one way The Sullivan Commission (2004) has identified will bring about changes in health disparities by having providers who are culturally similar to and sensitive to patients in healthcare's medically underserved communities [2,6,21] .…”

“…According to the literature there are several studies citing perceptions of what minority nursing students stated helped them succeed and remain in nursing programs [5][6][7][8][9] . Moreover, Noone [11] published a literature review that described strategies that were used in nursing education between 2002 and 2007 to recruit, retain, and graduate more minorities.…”