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Sustainability in Nursing Education: The Future Advancement of Academic Nursing Act Amber Hammer The World Health Organization declared 2020 the “Year of the Nurse and Midwife” to acknowledge the essential and tireless work of devoted nurses around the world. The designation coincidentally aligned with the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, which called nurses to action in unprecedented ways. Moreover, the pandemic highlighted the severity of racial and social inequities in healthcare, and public discourse centered on how to ameliorate the egregious disparities.1 COVID-19 exacerbated previous deficits in the nursing workforce, such as increasing clinical nurse and nurse faculty shortages, lack of representation in nursing academia and practice, and inadequate or outdated infrastructure in schools of nursing.2,3 In response, the Future Advancement of Academic Nursing (FAAN) Act (S.4396/H.R.7945) was introduced on August 4, 2020, by Representative Lauren Underwood (D-IL-14) and Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson (DTX-30), the only two nurses serving in Congress at the time of submission.4 The goal of FAAN was to improve access to high quality and equitable nursing care by allocating funding to nursing schools to address the critical workforce deficiencies, to promote social justice in nursing, and to increase preparedness for the growing demands of our nation’s health and wellbeing.3,4 Nurses constitute the largest sector of the US healthcare workforce, with three million nurses nationwide.5 A significant nursing shortage has been an enduring national issue since the late 1990s, and the current nursing shortage is projected to worsen over the next twenty years.6 With a large aging population, increased rates of chronic conditions, and an aging nursing workforce, the demand for nurses will continue to rise.7,6 COVID-19 has contributed to additional burnout, and it is currently unknown what long-term effects the pandemic will have on recruitment, retention, and
