Introduction
A strong nursing curriculum lays the foundation for a successful nursing career. It provides knowledge, skills, and attitudes to practice safe, effective, evidence-based patient care. However, nursing knowledge, best practices, and technology are always changing. The consequences of out-of-date nursing curricula may include a negative impact on patient care, increased errors, and less overall job success for future nurses (LearnTastic, 2024). In this article, we will discuss how stakeholders can help ensure a strong nursing curriculum and support nurse educators in producing successful future nurses (Burke, 2023).
Maintaining a Strong Curriculum
Nursing curricula is only strong if it keeps up with evidence-based practices, technology, and other changes in healthcare. Nursing programs may use organizational memberships to stay abreast of practice updates impacting nursing education (Mason, Perez, & Dickson, 2021). The US Department of Education recognizes three accreditation organizations that provide up-to-date nursing education guidelines: The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), The National League of Nursing (NLN), and the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing (ACEN) (US Department of Education Office of Postsecondary Education, 2025).
AACN Essentials outline the curriculum content and competencies for baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral nursing programs (2021). NLN Accreditation Standards for Nursing Education Programs (2021) curricular framework acts as a guideline for nursing programs by providing five standards and quality indicators. Lastly, the ACEN supports all levels of nursing education and transition-to-practice programs using criteria that include student outcomes, instructional strategies, programs of study, clock hours, contemporary content, and learning environments, as well as student evaluations (2023).
Nursing programs may use AACN, NLN, or ACEN guidelines for external curricular review. Nursing programs may also use internal quality review and the input of stakeholders to update the curriculum. Collectively, curricular guidelines, quality review, and stakeholder input proactively enable nursing programs to respond to changes in health care and ultimately support the evolution of a nurse’s roles, policies, and practices.
How does Curriculum Benefit from Stakeholder Involvement?
Often, stakeholders are invited to be part of a nursing program’s advisory board. Advisory boards may go by many names: Think Tank, Steering Committees, Project Board, Advisory Panel, Board of Advisors, Advisory Team, Advisory Committee, Professional Advisory Group, Peer Advisory Board, Planning Board, or Consultative Body. The purpose of an advisory board is to provide an organization with advice through structured collaboration (Advisory Board Centre, 2025).
As shown in Table 1. Who are Nursing Curriculum Stakeholders? Nursing curriculum stakeholders can provide useful insights, perspectives, networking, skills, and resources. This is important because many social, economic, political, and ethical factors shape the nursing curriculum.
Stakeholder Education
Nursing education stakeholders need to be educated in nursing education and curricula to understand how they can provide advice, solve problems, or explore new opportunities. Stakeholder education should give the stakeholders a sense of purpose by providing supportive knowledge, leadership, and empowerment for those involved (Hendricks, n.d.).
Ways to educate stakeholders include workshops, discussions, and hands-on simulations. Workshops provide an opportunity for the stakeholders to observe the structure and organization of the curriculum. Stakeholders often ask questions and offer feedback. Round table discussions are a way for stakeholders to observe the student and faculty interaction. Allowing the stakeholders to visit a hands-on simulation is a good way to engage them in thinking about the support they can provide the faculty. Lastly, role-playing with students can help stakeholders understand the importance of hands-on experience. Role-playing benefits the students as they learn from responsive people instead of mannequins (Laugaland et al., 2023).
For a strong curriculum to work, it is important to inform stakeholders about current issues in nursing, including the nursing faculty shortage (AACN, 2024). In 2021, the National Advisory Council on Nurse Education and Practice recommended that the US Congress develop, support, and fund initiatives to address the shortage of nurse faculty and enhance nursing education (AACN, 2024). Data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that nurse educators are struggling with student academic preparedness (Lanahan, Montalvo, & Cohn, 2022) Stakeholders can help with recruitment, remediation, and funding to support these and other academic nursing issues.
Transparent and open communication during education sessions supports growth, trust, innovation, and collaboration among the stakeholder members. Many methods can be used to communicate with stakeholders, such as online forums, social media, emails, and visual infographics. Sending regular updates and asking for feedback can be useful for quality improvement and continuous nursing program growth. The Nurses on Boards Coalition currently has an NLN micro-credential program titled “Language and Communication in the Boardroom: Linguistic Strategies for Making Your Board Seat Count”. This program teaches linguistic strategies to maximize the impact on the board. You may access this five-module course for $195 at https://www.nursesonboardscoalition.org/language-and-communication/
Conclusion
A strong nursing curriculum will keep future nurses current with the changing healthcare environment. Maintaining strong nursing curricula can be achieved through academic guidelines, quality review, and stakeholder involvement. When the nursing program provides stakeholder education, promotes transparency, and supports open communication, nursing education stakeholder relationships can grow. When organized as an advisory group, the stakeholders can then help the nursing program ensure that the next generation of nurses have the skills to be strong, successful, and compassionate.
Table 1. Who are Nursing Curriculum Stakeholders?
Faculty, faculty governance, and financial decision makers, such as the Provost, who controls educational resources and initiatives.
Students and parents who provide insights for teaching strategies and positive learning experiences.
Clinical partners who contribute to clinical placement and views on the job market and hands-on learning experiences (Belita, Carter, & Bryant-Lukosius, 2020)
Professional nursing associations that influence curricular decision making, e.g., ANA, AACN, and NLN
Grassroots organizations that bring awareness and ways to address basic social determinants of health issues, empowerment, collaboration, and inclusivity. Grassroots organizations can bring new ideas related to academic freedom, free speech, and lack of censorship (Mason et al., 2021)
State and federal government organizations that impact the scope of practice, research, and programmatic funding, e.g., the National Institute of Health, Title VII Nursing Workforce: Workforce Reauthorization Act, and the Public Health Services Act (Mason et al., 2021).
Regulatory and certification agencies that can impact the scope of practice and disciplinary actions.
Non-profit organizations that can support advocacy and philanthropy, e.g., the Jonas Philanthropes Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Businesses and the community that may employ the students in the future.
