The COVID-19 pandemic created an upheaval for nursing faculty teaching students in both didactic and clinical settings. From the intense disruption, opportunities for creative endeavors emerged. Program directors from a consortium of 12 nursing schools met remotely for problem-solving and support. Rich text from minutes of nine program director meetings were analyzed. Aims of our project included identifying challenges that nurse educators encountered during the pandemic, demonstrating benefits of a university and community college partnership model, and informing nurse educators of innovative outcomes that originated from our project. Thematic analysis of meeting minutes revealed four categories: timing and urgency; collaboration, preparation, and teaching; altruism; and what we learned. Further themes were identified from each of the categories. Innovative outcomes were identified from the text including creation of website teaching resources and development of a computer based clinical checklist. Implications for future nursing education included that computer- based simulation will continue to be embedded in nursing curricula. Also, the need for nursing faculty to remain technologically savvy to deliver trailblazing online pedagogies will prominently continue. We conclude that the synergistic collaboration of nursing program directors can have momentous outcomes for support and success of nursing programs.
Keywords: Collaboration; Innovation; Pandemic; Pre-licensure nursing education.
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