UHCL professor secures a THECB grant to address nursing shortage in Texas

The nursing shortage in the U.S. is a critical issue, projected to leave a gap of over 78,000 full-time registered nurses by 2025. Addressing this challenge head-on, Karen Alexander, the director of nursing and an associate professor at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL), has secured a $378,753 grant from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) Nursing Shortage Reduction Program. This funding is set to bolster UHCL's efforts in recruiting and retaining bilingual students in UHCL's Nursing program, increasing overall enrollment, and fostering innovative teaching methods to ensure a new generation of nursing educators and professionals.

Alexander attributes the nursing shortage, in part, to a lack of nurse educators and believes the grant will enhance degree marketing efforts, ultimately leading to more qualified nursing educators and healthcare professionals throughout the state.

"This grant will help us market people to our new MSN Nursing Education and Leadership degree," she said, "so we will be putting out educators who can help alleviate many of the waitlists that students sometimes have to go through to get into a pre-license nursing program."

Targeting bilingual students is one of the primary subgoals of the grant. UHCL is a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and 25% of Houston residents identify as Hispanic. Therefore, Alexander said reaching this population should be easy. She plans to draw other ethnicities to the program as well, not just Spanish-speaking groups. She said she wants to advertise on radio, movie theatres, social media, and streaming TV stations as well as magazines geared toward specific ethnic groups to help reach this goal.

"We have a large population of Asian nurses in the Houston area, and I think sometimes they get underrepresented in this profession, so we want to make that sure we include them," she said. "We also have a large population of nurses who are from various parts of Africa. There is such a melting pot in Houston that we can tap into as well as other parts of the U. S."

As a veteran, Alexander hopes to draw more veterans to UHCL's nursing program as well, along with male students. Data USA calculates that men represent less than 13% of the workforce of registered nurses in Texas.