Doctor of Education | Nursing Education

The newly revised curriculum for the EdD in nursing education was designed by a group of nursing education experts.  It was approved by the State of New York in 2015 as an online offering.  

Become an expert and lead change in nursing education  

Nurses interested in pursuing doctoral work have at least three degree options: PhD, DNP, and EdD. The primary focus of PhD programs is to prepare nurses to become scientists who conduct and seek funding for research. The focus of Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) degree is to prepare advanced practice nurses to become independent care providers and is intended to be a parity degree with other health care doctorates such as psychology (PsyD), medicine (MD), and dentistry (DDS) (AACN). The third option, the EdD, is designed for those desiring to be experts and lead change in nursing education as they seek preparation for faculty and/or educator roles.  At Teachers College, the EdD in Nursing Education has also included an emphasis on research and scholarly inquiry. 

The education of nurses is perhaps the most challenging work in academia. While other health professions require an undergraduate degree in a related field, most entry-to-practice nursing programs are offered to the high school graduate. Many are traditional students entering the programs when they are 18-year olds, but many others are nontraditional students who are older, more diverse, and who often speak English as a second language. Moreover, these nontraditional students are precisely the types of students needed to diversify the nursing workforce and meet the needs of a culturally diverse society. The nurse educator is charged with teaching this diverse body of students to become safe, knowledgeable, and professional practitioners, able to handle the advanced technological demands of the current health care system. This educator operates in an educational environment that must meet stiff accreditation demands.  Moreover, nursing programs have been subject for decades to high stakes testing that both licenses its graduates to become registered nurses, but also, in the form of closely watched pass-rates, provides a sobering and accreditation-threatening evaluation of these nursing programs on a yearly basis. Clearly every nursing faculty needs professors who are experts in best practices in education.