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The relatively rapid increase of nurse practitioner (NP) programs across the United States has necessitated schools and colleges of nursing to hire and support NP faculty through the promotion process to sustain their programs. Nurse practitioner faculty engaged in clinical practice often face barriers in obtaining rank promotion. The purpose of this article was to provide NP faculty an evidence-based pathway to support academic rank promotion. An additional aim was to recognize implicit biases and barriers, while offering guidance for overcoming challenges. Using Boyer (1990) and American Association of Colleges of Nursing (2018) as a foundation, this article outlines a pathway to synergistically highlight and weave clinical practice experiences within academic expectations of promotion. The categories of academic rank promotion identified and highlighted within this article include scholarship, teaching, practice, and service. The Stager & Douglass Pathway to Preparation for Traversing Academic Rank for Clinical Faculty provides steps for a well-developed plan and comprehensive dossier in supporting successful promotion. These steps include understanding institutional promotional guidelines, developing focused priorities, defining the clinical practice role in the progression of promotion, partnering with a mentor, gathering supportive materials early, and developing a comprehensive dossier, leading to a successful academic rank promotion process. Preparing the dossier early leverages time for the NP faculty to strategize with academic leaders and colleague mentors to develop focused priorities. In addition, identified biases and barriers may be mitigated to support successful academic rank promotion.

The vaping of nicotine products has overwhelmingly gained national attention as the new public health crisis. The use of electronic nicotine delivery systems and products such as electronic cigarettes, JUUL, pods, or vaporizers is now a worldwide multibillion dollar industry. Despite the notable gains decreasing harmful smoking behaviors of traditional cigarettes among youth, these public health initiatives have been significantly nullified by the indiscriminate exposure of these highly addictive products by nicotine manufacturers to the adolescent population. Although touted as a safer alternative to traditional tobacco smoking and an effective cessation method to quit traditional cigarette smoking, there are no definitive data, to date, substantiating that this is true. Currently, adolescents are the predominant population using electronic nicotine delivery systems and at the greatest risk to the negative effects of nicotine exposure (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2016). The purpose of this article is to identify the health impact and potential dangers related to the vaping epidemic that conflict with teens' risk beliefs that vaping is harmless. To protect American youth, a comprehensive approach for harm reduction to this deadly problem is imperative, including product warnings and regulation, public media campaigns, economic and social strategies, and policy initiatives.