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"The bottom line is that most of the people in faculty positions are at the retirement end of the career scale," Valiga said. "In the next couple of years, a great many are going to retire. It's really a major crisis."

Valiga and some of her colleagues at the National League for Nursing have been discussing how to go beyond simply encouraging retired nurses to stay involved. They are working on designing and implementing a formal program to bring retired faculty back into nursing education.

"[Retired faculty] could make a huge contribution," she said. "There are a number of creative ways we could continue to use faculty that retire."

Teaching part time, writing grant proposals and mentoring new faculty are a few of Valiga's suggestions, as well as volunteering as academic advisers for students.

"Younger faculty dress a little more like students and use younger language, but what students really respond to is faculty who respect them and want to help them learn, and invest time and energy in them," she said. "Older and retired faculty do that really well. Students really respect what experienced faculty bring."

Sarah Keating, Ed.D., RN, FAAN, is just the kind of retiree Valiga has in mind. The 67-year-old former community health nurse and academic retired to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains near Sacramento, Calif., "to hide out in the hills," she said, but never strayed far from the thick of nursing activity.

Before retiring in 2000, Keating was dean of nursing at Samuel Merritt College in Oakland, Calif., and was director of the nursing program at San Francisco State University. For 10 years before she retired, she also volunteered as director of the California Strategic Planning Committee for Nursing, which analyzed the nursing workforce. This made her her well-aware of an impending shortage.

"We predicted the shortage. We've been hollering about it for some time," she said. Keating continued her work with the committee after her retirement, but she cranked up the pace when she returned to her teaching roots.

Keating is a professor of online community health classes for San Diego-based National University and Excelsior College in New York. She also teaches online for University of Nevada, Reno, and is helping the school develop programs for nursing faculty.

"It's supposed to be part time," she said with a laugh. "Then I realized I was teaching three courses at the graduate level per semester. That's more than full time."

Keating said that she was looking forward to a relaxing retirement, but she knew she would find something to keep her busy, beyond the weekly tennis games and winter skiing in the Sierra.

"I love teaching and I love the [nursing] profession," she said. "I do believe that with our experience and with the shortage, we have things we can contribute."

Lifelong love

Jean Harlow, MSN, agreed. "I think that what I do can help make a difference," said the 73-year-old Sacramento resident, who volunteers with the California Board of Registered Nursing-where she worked for almost 14 years before retiring nine months ago.

As an employee, Harlow was a supervisor in nursing education. Now, she volunteers for the board's Nursing Workforce Advisory Committee, which is tackling various aspects of the nursing shortage in California. One week she might work six hours, another week a bustling 40 hours.

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