Tori Stanek, a 2024 graduate of the EdD in Educational and Professional Practice at Antioch University, has written and published her dissertation titled Evaluating Native American Serving Nontribal Institutions Admissions Criteria to Create an Inclusive Nursing Workforce.
As the bulk of the United States population ages out of the workforce, the national nursing shortage is projected to increase, requiring more age-related healthcare services. The lack of diversity exacerbates this shortage, and the need for a diversified workforce acknowledged by governing nursing bodies as early as 2011 is still largely unmet.
Stanek’s study looks to nursing programs, specifically their application processes, as one factor that contributes to workforce disparities. Guided by several tenets of the Tribalcrit Theory and the Triarchic Theory of Intelligence, this mixed methods study investigated how barriers of solely analytically based admissions criteria at a small Native American-Serving Nontribal Institution (NASNTI) may disproportionally impact students with racial, ethnic, gender, language, and socioeconomic diversity.
Using statistical analysis of disaggregated admissions data and yarning-style interviews indicates admissions criteria based primarily on analytic intelligence measures that have limitations when it comes to identifying diverse student nurses with the capacity for success in the nursing workforce. Thus, this study identified gaps in program diversity, explored possible explanations, and provided actionable, culturally responsive interventions, including the inclusion of creative and practical intelligence criteria as part of the admission process. This work is the first step of many needed to radically change the workforce and the quality of care nurses can provide.
Stanek is the Associate Dean of Teaching and Learning Foundations at Columbia Gorge Community College, where she leads initiatives that celebrate diversity and promote equity within the academic library system and higher education. A steadfast advocate for social justice, Stanek integrates these values into her leadership by advancing programs that challenge hegemony in academia and promote inclusivity in library collections, services, and operations.
Read and download Stanke’s dissertation, Evaluating Native American Serving Nontribal Institutions Admissions Criteria to Create an Inclusive Nursing Workforce.
