Dear OADN Members,

Congratulations on the completion of the 2022-2023 academic year! With the academic year wrapping up comes the opportunity to reflect on our collective work that advances excellence in ADN education. In partnership with all of you, the OADN Board of Directors and operations team are making great progress in meeting our mission to serve as the national voice and pivotal resource for ADN education.

In 2022, the OADN Board engaged in strategic planning, which resulted in our 2022-2025 Strategic Direction. I would like to draw your attention to Priority 2: Education, which has the overall goal of OADN serving as the expert resource for ADN Education. Critical to achieving this goal is the creation and implementation of a high impact research agenda to identify OADN’s research needs in the coming years to inform organizational planning, align outputs for the strategic plan, and inform members of research priorities.

Upon reflecting on our progress on the research agenda, I want to acknowledge the great work of our OADN Research Committee on the 2022 Annual Assessment of ADN Program Faculty Compensation survey. This committee of colleagues worked diligently to create our inaugural faculty compensation survey to capture priority data specific to ADN education. Prior to this survey, work cited for national nursing faculty compensation was not inclusive of ADN education. Thanks to all of you, OADN had a high survey response rate leading to impactful findings for nursing education. So much so that for the first time, the 2022 OADN survey data was cited in NCSBN 2023 Environmental Scan, The NCSBN 2023 Environmental Scan: Nursing at a Crossroads—An Opportunity for Action – Journal of Nursing Regulation.

Due to the importance of the ADN faculty compensation data for ADN education, our members, and our continued representation in reported national data, the Assessment of ADN Program Faculty Compensation survey will be distributed and analyzed annually. Our collective success in accurately capturing these data is influenced by OADN program member engagement. Your feedback last year helped us strengthen this year’s survey instrument, which has been designed to assess current program leadership turnover, faculty shortages, compensation needs and ADN enrollment trends. Your continued engagement with this critically important research survey is needed to help us capture much needed data that will drive meaningful policy change for ADN education. Please participate in the 2023 Annual Assessment of ADN Program Faculty and Compensation Survey, which will be disseminated to all ADN nursing program administrators in the coming weeks.

Thank you for your ongoing advocacy and support of OADN and the associate degree pathway. I look forward to our continued collaboration on work that advances excellence in ADN education. Have a wonderful June and I look forward to visiting with you at this year’s OADN Convention, Turning the Tide of Nursing Education, November 15^th – 18^th in San Diego.

Thank you,

Lynette Apen, DNP, RN, CNS, CNE
Western Regional Director, OADN Board
Board Liaison, OADN Research Committee