| Course | NU 617 The Nurse Educator Roles |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 1 |
| Paper type | Faculty workload brief |
| Length | About 680 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Herzing University |
| Program | MSN Nurse Educator |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for NU 617 Unit 1
Where the Hours Go: A Workload Brief for a Nine-Month Clinical-Track Assistant Professor Appointment in a BSN Program
Student Name
Department of Nursing, Herzing University
NU 617: The Nurse Educator Roles
Instructor Name
January 22, 2026
Where the Hours Go: A Workload Brief for a Nine-Month Clinical-Track Assistant Professor Appointment in a BSN Program
The Appointment
Position: assistant professor, clinical track, nine-month appointment, in a composite university BSN program with about 320 students. Contract: two 16-week semesters, fall and spring, with a teaching load of 12 workload units per semester. Clinical-track faculty are evaluated on teaching and service, with an expectation of one scholarly product per year, such as a conference presentation or a practice article. I am writing this brief because I have been offered the position and want to know, before I accept, where my hours will go.
How the Contract Counts Workload
The program's workload policy assigns one unit per credit hour of classroom teaching and converts clinical teaching at a ratio in which each clinical group of up to eight students, meeting one day a week, counts as 4.5 units. My proposed fall assignment: one 3-credit medical-surgical theory course, co-taught with another faculty member, counted as 3 units; and two clinical groups of eight students on a medical-surgical unit, counted as 9 units. Total: 12 units. The policy states that advising, committee service, and scholarship are part of the faculty role and are not counted in units.
Where the Hours Actually Go in a Typical Fall Week
I estimated hours from the course schedule, the clinical calendar, conversations with two current faculty members, and the program's advising and committee assignments.
| Activity | Counted in units? | Hours per week | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Theory class time | Yes | 3 | Scheduled class |
| Theory preparation | Implicitly | 4.5 | About 1.5 hours per class hour for a course new to me |
| Theory grading and online discussion | Implicitly | 3 | Shared with co-teacher |
| Clinical days on the unit, including pre- and post-conference and travel | Yes | 18 | Two groups, one 9-hour day each |
| Clinical paperwork: care plans, journals, evaluations for 16 students | Implicitly | 4 | About 15 minutes per student per week |
| Clinical site coordination with unit managers | No | 1 | Weekly contact, more at the start of term |
| Required office hours | No | 3 | Program policy |
| Advising 25 students | No | 1.5 | Averaged; peaks at registration |
| Curriculum committee and faculty meetings | No | 3 | Meetings plus preparation |
| Scholarship | No | 3 | Minimum to produce one product a year |
| Email and administrative tasks | No | 3 | Current faculty estimate |
| Total | 47 |
What the Table Shows
The 12 units describe about 21 hours of scheduled contact: 3 in the classroom and 18 in clinical. The remaining 26 hours of a 47-hour week are either implied by the teaching, such as preparation and grading, or are not counted at all. Advising, committee work, scholarship, site coordination, and email together take about 11.5 hours a week, roughly a quarter of the total, and none of it appears in the workload units.
Clinical teaching carries a particular hidden load. Each clinical day includes arriving before students to review assignments, supervising medication administration for eight students, and conducting post-conference, followed by an evening of reading care plans and journals. Faculty told me that a clinical day on a busy unit is the most tiring part of the job and that paperwork spills into weekends in the first half of the term.
Seasonal Peaks
Hours are not even across the semester. The first three weeks carry clinical orientation, site onboarding, and new-course preparation, which faculty estimated at 55 hours a week. Midterm and the last two weeks carry clinical evaluations, final grading, and any student remediation or failure decisions, which are slow, careful work. The nine-month appointment leaves summer unpaid, but faculty told me that summer is when scholarship actually gets done and when fall courses are prepared, so the scholarship expectation effectively reaches into unpaid months.
Why This Matters
Workload is associated with whether nurse faculty stay. A national survey of nurse faculty found that perceptions of work life, including workload, were associated with emotional exhaustion and with intent to leave academic nursing (Yedidia et al., 2014), and a separate national analysis examined which features of the academic workplace predict whether faculty intend to stay (Candela et al., 2015). The competencies expected of academic nurse educators extend well beyond classroom teaching, to curriculum design, evaluation, scholarship, and leadership within the institution (Halstead, 2019), and each of those competencies takes hours that must come from somewhere.
What I Will Ask Before Accepting
Four questions for the program director. Can I teach the same theory course for at least two years, so preparation hours fall after the first year? Will my two clinical groups be on the same unit, reducing site coordination and travel? Is the curriculum committee assignment negotiable in my first year? And is there any release time, even one unit, for the scholarship expectation? If the answers are no, the position may still be right for me, but I will accept it knowing that the job is about 47 hours a week in term and some summer work, not the 21 hours of contact the contract describes.
References
Candela, L., Gutierrez, A. P., & Keating, S. (2015). What predicts nurse faculty members' intent to stay in the academic organization? A structural equation model of a national survey of nursing faculty. Nurse Education Today, 35(4), 580-589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.12.018
Halstead, J. A. (Ed.). (2019). NLN core competencies for nurse educators: A decade of influence. National League for Nursing.
Yedidia, M. J., Chou, J., Brownlee, S., Flynn, L., & Tanner, C. A. (2014). Association of faculty perceptions of work-life with emotional exhaustion and intent to leave academic nursing: Report on a national survey of nurse faculty. Journal of Nursing Education, 53(10), 569-579. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20140922-03
Reading the NU 617 Unit 1 instructions
Unit 1 asks you to analyze the workload of a nurse faculty position, usually by comparing what a contract or policy counts with how time is actually spent. Expect to describe the appointment, explain the workload policy, estimate hours across teaching, clinical supervision, preparation, grading, advising, service and scholarship, and discuss implications for the role. Many versions ask you to connect workload to the NLN nurse educator competencies or to faculty retention research. Check whether your section expects a position you hold, one you have applied for or a composite. Estimates are acceptable if you explain how you made them. Including seasonal variation shows a realistic picture, since faculty weeks are rarely even across a semester and the peaks matter most.
How this NU 617 Unit 1 example is built
The brief opens with the appointment described in a few lines: rank, track, length and contract terms. The policy section explains how teaching is converted to workload units, including the clinical ratio, which sets up the gap the brief reveals. A table estimates hours in a typical fall week by activity, with sources for each estimate. The analysis section points out that scheduled contact is less than half the week. Seasonal peaks are described with weeks named. A short section connects workload to retention evidence, which explains why the analysis matters beyond one person. The final section turns findings into four specific questions for the program director, such as whether the same theory course can be taught two years running so preparation time drops.
Where the points sit in the NU 617 Unit 1 rubric
Herzing's rubric for the workload brief usually covers the description of the role, the explanation of workload policy, the analysis of time across faculty responsibilities, connection to nurse educator competencies or literature, implications and writing. Policy points reward an accurate account of how workload is counted, including how clinical contact converts to units. The time analysis is where a grader spends longest: estimates must be specific, sourced and cover every faculty role, not only teaching. Competency or literature criteria look for the NLN competencies or retention research applied to the numbers rather than summarized. Implications points go to concrete questions or decisions that follow from the analysis. Presentation includes a readable table with totals that add up. Halstead's NLN competencies text and the Yedidia survey on faculty work life belong in the APA 7 references.
NU 617 Unit 1 help before you submit
Workload briefs in Unit 1 usually lose points by counting only classroom and clinical hours and ignoring preparation, grading and advising, which together can fill half the week. Another frequent problem is estimates with no stated basis. Students often describe workload policy vaguely, such as faculty teach twelve credits, without explaining how clinical hours convert. Service and scholarship are commonly left out, even though promotion depends on them. Seasonal variation is rarely addressed, so the brief describes an average week that never happens. Implications are generic, such as faculty are busy. Literature is cited without connection to the numbers. Finally, end with something actionable, because graders look for what the analysis means for the writer's own decisions about accepting or shaping a position.
Get a NU 617 Unit 1 example written to your instructions
Send the Unit 1 instructions and the rubric from your NU 617 classroom, plus the type of appointment your brief has to describe and the setting it sits in. We write a custom example with the appointment fixed, teaching broken into its parts, service and scholarship named, and the uncounted obligations listed, returned in 24 to 48 hours. The first custom sample is free.
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NU 617 Unit 1 questions, answered
Can I write about a faculty position I hold or have applied for?
In many sections that is the better paper, because you can describe obligations that never appear in a posting. Confirm the instructions allow it, keep contract terms and anything confidential out of what you submit, and describe the position rather than the people who hold it. A position reconstructed from public advertisements and program materials supports the brief just as well.
Does the brief need to cover both academic and clinical teaching roles?
Only where the instructions ask for both. A brief trying to hold a classroom appointment, a clinical instructor post and a staff development role at once ends up general about all three. Choose one, say why you chose it, and use the others as contrast in a sentence or two where a difference is genuinely instructive rather than decorative.
How is workload usually expressed in academic appointments?
Institutions differ, and the brief should say which convention it uses rather than assume one. Credit hours, contact hours, workload units and percentage effort all appear, and they do not convert cleanly from one institution to another. Where you can cite the program or system your example belongs to, do that; where you cannot, define your terms in the opening and stay consistent throughout.
Where can I find a free NU 617 Unit 1 sample paper?
The whole NU 617 Unit 1 faculty workload brief is free on this page, from the policy and hour estimates to the questions for the director. If your appointment or program differs, ask for a custom brief built on its terms.
How many hours a week do nursing faculty actually work?
It varies, but scheduled contact is often less than half. This sample estimates about 47 hours in a typical fall week for a clinical-track assistant professor with 21 hours of scheduled teaching, with the rest spent on preparation, grading, advising and service.