| Course | NURS 8540 Academic Nursing Faculty Role Development |
|---|---|
| Week | Week 8 |
| Paper type | Faculty mentorship plan |
| Length | About 1,000 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Walden University |
| Program | Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) |
| Updated | September 2026 |
Free sample paper for NURS 8540 Week 8
A Mentorship Plan With a Price: Matching, First-Year Transfer, Mentor Hours and Credit for One Incoming Nursing Faculty Member
Student Name
College of Nursing, Walden University
NURS 8540: Academic Nursing Faculty Role Development
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
A Mentorship Plan With a Price: Matching, First-Year Transfer, Mentor Hours and Credit for One Incoming Nursing Faculty Member
Why Price the Plan
Most mentorship plans promise support and cost nothing on paper. In practice they cost a senior faculty member's time, and when that time is not counted anywhere, mentoring becomes the first thing dropped in a busy semester. This plan is written at the department level for one incoming appointee, a new clinical-track assistant professor joining the graduate nurse practitioner program at a composite state university. It names how the mentor is matched, what should transfer in the first year, how many hours the mentor gives and how the department credits those hours in the mentor's own review. It also plans for the possibility that the pairing does not work.
The department has reason to invest. Reviews of the nursing faculty shortage identify retention of new faculty as part of the problem (Nardi & Gyurko, 2013), and a study of nursing faculty found that mentoring was associated with psychological empowerment and job satisfaction (Chung & Kowalski, 2012). A model of academic mentoring in nursing developed by a national working group describes best practices that include a structured approach, clear goals and support for mentors (Nick et al., 2012).
Matching
The chair will propose two possible mentors to the new faculty member before the start of the first semester, and the new faculty member will choose. Criteria for proposed mentors are that they hold associate rank or higher on the clinical or tenure track, have been promoted under the current criteria, teach in the same program, are not the new faculty member's supervisor or course coordinator and have agreed to the time commitment below. Separating the mentor from the supervisor matters: a new faculty member should be able to raise difficulties with a mentor without worrying that the conversation will appear in an evaluation.
What Should Transfer in the First Year
The first year focuses on knowledge that is hard to find in writing. Table 1 lists what the mentor is expected to transfer, and when.
Table 1
First-Year Mentorship Content by Semester
| Period | What transfers | Evidence it happened |
|---|---|---|
| Before classes begin | How the course shells, grading systems and clinical placement process actually work | New faculty member's course is live on time |
| First semester | How promotion criteria are read in practice; examples of successful files | Draft three-year plan reviewed with mentor |
| First semester | Which committees matter and how to decline others | Service limited to agreed seats |
| Second semester | Feedback on a teaching observation; how to present teaching evidence | Peer observation memo in file |
| Second semester | Review of the scholarship plan and first manuscript draft | Manuscript submitted or near submission |
| End of year | Joint review of the year against the plan | Written summary for both files |
What the Mentor Is Not Asked to Do
Clarity about limits protects both people. The mentor is not asked to write or edit the new faculty member's manuscripts, to teach her courses, to resolve conflicts with her supervisor or to advocate for her in promotion decisions, which would compromise the mentor's own role on review committees. The mentor is asked to share knowledge, give honest feedback and help the new faculty member find the right people for questions the mentor cannot answer.
The plan also does not ask the new faculty member to report on the mentor, apart from the end-of-semester check on whether the pairing is working. Mentoring conversations are confidential except where the new faculty member chooses to share them or where a safety or policy concern requires disclosure. Stating these limits at the first meeting, in writing, prevents misunderstandings later, especially about whether difficulties raised with the mentor will reach the chair.
The Mentor's Hours
The plan asks for about 40 hours from the mentor in the first year: a one-hour meeting every two weeks during the academic year, about 28 hours, one teaching observation with pre- and post-meetings, about 4 hours, and reading drafts and files, about 8 hours. In the second year the commitment falls to monthly meetings, about 15 hours. The hours are stated so that the mentor can plan for them and the chair can count them.
Crediting the Mentor
Mentoring will be credited as service in the mentor's annual review, recorded as one committee-equivalent assignment, so the mentor carries one fewer committee seat in the first year. The mentor will also submit a short summary of the mentoring relationship for the review file, and the department's promotion criteria will be amended to list formal mentoring of new faculty as evidence of service and leadership. Without this credit, the plan would ask the mentor for 40 hours taken from her own scholarship or teaching, which would make good mentors reluctant to volunteer again.
When the Pairing Does Not Work
Some pairings fail, through a mismatch of style, a conflict or a change in either person's circumstances. The plan treats that as foreseeable rather than as a failure of either person. At the end of the first semester, the chair will ask both people separately whether the pairing is working. Either may ask for a change without giving a reason, and the chair will propose a new mentor within a month. The first mentor still receives credit for the hours given. If the new faculty member prefers a second, informal mentor for a specific need, such as scholarship in a particular area, the plan allows it.
Evaluating the Plan
The department will know whether the plan worked by three measures: whether the new faculty member remains after three years, whether the third-year review is passed on schedule and whether mentors are willing to serve again. These are small numbers in a single department, so the chair will also ask both people each year what helped and what did not, and adjust the plan for the next appointee. The mentors themselves will be asked whether the credited hours matched the time they actually gave, since an underestimate would make the next mentor reluctant to agree.
References
Chung, C. E., & Kowalski, S. (2012). Job stress, mentoring, psychological empowerment, and job satisfaction among nursing faculty. Journal of Nursing Education, 51(7), 381-388. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20120509-03
Nardi, D. A., & Gyurko, C. C. (2013). The global nursing faculty shortage: Status and solutions for change. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 45(3), 317-326. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12030
Nick, J. M., Delahoyde, T. M., Del Prato, D., Mitchell, C., Ortiz, J., Ottley, C., Young, P., Cannon, S. B., Lasater, K., Reising, D., & Siktberg, L. (2012). Best practices in academic mentoring: A model for excellence. Nursing Research and Practice, 2012, Article 937906. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/937906
NURS 8540 Week 8 instructions, in plain terms
The mentoring assignment this week typically has you design a mentoring arrangement for new nursing faculty and justify it with literature. Expect several pages in APA style. Decide whether the plan serves one pair or a program, and say how mentors are matched. List what the mentor should pass on and when, with evidence that it happened. Estimate the mentor's hours honestly, and say how the department will credit them, since unpaid time is the first to be cut. State what the mentor is not asked to do. Plan for a pairing that does not work, and describe how the department will judge whether the plan succeeded.
Inside the NURS 8540 Week 8 example
The opening section explains why mentoring must be priced and cites Nardi and Gyurko, Chung and Kowalski and Nick and colleagues. A matching section describes choosing between two mentors who are not supervisors. Table 1 lists first-year content by semester with evidence. A section estimates about 40 mentor hours in year one and 15 in year two. A section lists what the mentor is not asked to do and describes confidentiality. A crediting section counts mentoring as a committee-equivalent and amends promotion criteria. A section describes a no-fault change of mentor. An evaluation section names retention, third-year review and mentor willingness.
Where the marks sit in the NURS 8540 Week 8 rubric
Mentorship plans are usually assessed on a clear structure, realistic resources, grounding in literature and planning for problems. Structure credit rewards defined matching, content and timing. Resource credit goes to plans that estimate the mentor's hours and credit them. Literature is credited when it shapes specific features of the plan. Planning for a failed pairing and stating limits on the mentor's role show realism. Evaluation measures earn credit when they fit a single department's numbers. The content table, references and sources make up the remainder. Plans that promise support without naming who gives it or how long it takes tend to lose marks. Some rubrics also reward naming what the mentor is not responsible for, which protects both people. Graders notice when evaluation measures fit a single department's small numbers.
NURS 8540 Week 8 help: mistakes that cost marks
Mentorship plans slip when they describe mentoring as encouragement without any schedule or content. Another weakness is a plan that asks senior faculty for time without crediting it. Some plans assign the supervisor as mentor, which limits what the new faculty member can say. Others assume every pairing will work. Define matching, list what transfers, estimate and credit hours, set limits and plan for change. The desk can draft a mentorship plan for your own department or program. Ask two recently hired colleagues what they wish they had been told in their first semester before deciding what the mentor should pass on. Keep the plan short enough that a busy mentor will actually read it.
Get a NURS 8540 Week 8 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 8 prompt with its rubric and any framework your section named, and a NURS 8540 mentorship plan example returns carrying matching criteria, the transfer calendar, the cost section and both measures. First custom one free, 24 to 48 hours. Personnel records from a real pairing stay where they are; this plan runs on a described department.
More NURS 8540 papers and DNP samples
- NURS 8540 Week 1: Faculty Retention Post
- NURS 8540 Week 2: Faculty Role Analysis Paper
- NURS 8540 Week 3: Position Description Analysis
- NURS 8540 Week 4: Faculty Workload Analysis
- NURS 8540 Week 5: Education Philosophy Statement
- NURS 8540 Week 6: Faculty Scholarship Plan
- NURS 8540 Week 7: Peer Teaching Review Memo
- NURS 8540 Week 9: Faculty Incivility Post
- NURS 8540 Week 10: Promotion Narrative
- NURS 8540 Week 11: Faculty Career Development Plan
- NURS 8512 Week 8: DNP Evaluation and Fidelity Plan
- NURS 8310 Week 8: Population Burden Estimate
- NURS 8301 Week 8: PDSA Cycle Plan
- NURS 8600 Week 8: DNP sustainment handoff plan
NURS 8540 Week 8 questions, answered
Is the plan written for one pair or for a whole program?
Prompts run both ways. The example takes one incoming appointee and builds a departmental plan around that case, which keeps the transfers concrete while still producing something a program could adopt. A plan written only in general terms tends to lose specificity points, and a plan written only about two named people loses the structural ones.
Does mentoring need a published framework behind it?
Doctoral rubrics usually expect one, and the example draws on nursing education mentoring literature for its matching rules and its measures. The framework has to be visible in the design rather than cited once and dropped. A reader should be able to point at the contact schedule and see which published idea produced it.
How is this different from a personal mentorship plan?
A personal plan names who would develop the writer and who the writer would develop, and it belongs to an individual career. This one belongs to a department: it survives the departure of either person, states what the institution pays, and gets evaluated as a scheme. The difference shows up most clearly in the sections on cost and reassignment.
Where can I find a free NURS 8540 Week 8 sample paper?
The complete mentorship plan, with its first-year content table and crediting rules, is posted here free of charge. A plan for your own department can be requested.
How is the mentor credited in the NURS 8540 Week 8 plan?
Mentoring counts as one committee-equivalent assignment in the mentor's annual review, so the mentor carries one fewer committee seat in the first year.