american association of colleges of nursing | the voice of academic nursing | Transform 2023 | Transform. connect. learn. lead

Program Agenda

Program subject to change.

Wednesday, December 3 - Essentials Workshop

Advancing Curricular Transformation Through Coaching and Competency-Based Assessment Strategies

This workshop is designed for classroom faculty, course coordinators, clinical instructors, simulation faculty, and anyone passionate about refining coaching for competency as schools of nursing move to competency-based education (CBE).

Start time: 8:00 a.m. | End time: 4:00 p.m.

This is a separate event. Learn more and register for the workshop here.

Thursday, December 4 - Faculty Leadership Network (FLN) Program

AI: Where Do We Go from Here? Best Practices, Policies and Legal Aspects in Nursing Education

This half-day program, held prior to Transform, is hosted by AACN’s Faculty Leadership Network (FLN), a network specifically created for faculty whose primary focus is teaching didactic and clinical courses. It provides opportunities to explore real world issues, pose pedagogical questions, and exchange ideas related to teaching and curriculum in professional nursing education.

Start time: 7:30 a.m. | End time: 12:00 p.m.

This is a separate event. Learn more and register for the FLN Program here.

December 4

11:00 a.m. -5:00 p.m.	Registration Open

1:00-6:00 p.m.	Exhibitor Showcase Open

1:00-6:00 p.m.	Poster Showcase Open

1:00-1:45 p.m.	First-Time Attendee Meet & Greet Hosted by the AACN Transform Subcommittee

2:00 - 3:00 p.m.	Welcome and Opening Plenary Awareness, Intention, and Action: A Competitor's View of Risk-Taking and Resilience As a professional athlete competing in high pressure events, David Colturi faces many of the same mental challenges nurses face daily, including the need for courage and risk-taking in the face of high stress and anxiety. While nurses perform on the frontlines of health, David’s feats as an award-winning cliff diver take place more than 10 stories high above turbulent seas. Building on his unique perspective for moving past fear and inaction, David will share his compelling framework of Awareness, Intention, and Action that can be used when taking risks, building resilience, and living with purpose. Drawing from his experiences competing on the world stage, he offers practical tools - like mindfulness and grit-building exercises - to reduce stress, gain clarity, and take strategic action.

3:30 - 4:30 p.m.	Plenary Civility Rising! Cultivating Cultures of Connection and Collegiality in Academic Nursing Imagine a work environment where you and your colleagues can truly thrive, a place where mutual respect is the norm, and every individual feels valued and supported. Join Dr. Cynthia Clark, a renowned nurse scholar and award-winning educator, for an inspiring, interactive session to explore best practices for fostering collaboration and connection, strengthening community, and cultivating healthy, vibrant academic cultures where everyone can flourish and succeed, because when workplace incivility and other adverse behaviors go unchecked, the consequences can be serious and far-reaching.

4:30 - 6:00 p.m.	AACN Networking Reception with Poster Presentations

December 5

6:00 - 7:00 a.m.	Running and Walking Groups (optional)

7:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.	Registration Open

7:30 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.	Breakfast with Exhibitors

7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Poster Showcase Open

7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.	Exhibitor Showcase Open

7:30 - 8:30 a.m.	AACN Breakfast Forums Access, Connection, and Engagement (ACE) Forum Faculty Leadership Network (FLN) Breakfast Forum New Dean Dialogue

7:30 - 8:30 a.m.	Solution Circles Building Clinical Confidence in Online Labs Sponsored and presented by Science Interactive Join our facilitated focus group over breakfast, where we’ll swap what’s actually working—and what flops—for pre-nursing, nursing, and allied health labs across campus, hybrid, and fully online formats. Be assured this session is no slide parade; we want you to bring your thorniest lab challenges, and we’ll co-solve it and pressure-test approaches. Expect interesting conversation, practical fixes, and a few "steal this" ideas you can use next term.

9:00 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.	Podium Abstract Presentations

12:45 - 2:00 p.m.	Lunch (on your own), Poster Viewing & Networking with Exhibitors

12:45-1:45 p.m.	NursingCAS Luncheon A Demonstration of AACN’s Student Application and Admissions Management Portal Discover NursingCAS, AACN’s student application service that provides member colleges with a free, online platform to efficiently manage all aspects of the admission process. Using this service, schools are able to streamline their recruitment operations, gain access to powerful enrollment management software, expand their customer service capacity, and reach a national applicant pool. Learn why nearly 300 colleges of nursing used NursingCAS during the last enrollment cycle to process more than 115,000 nursing school applications. Pre-registration required here. Limited seating available.

2:00 - 3:00 p.m.	Emerging Solutions Introduction to the Ecosystem of Excellence in Academic Nursing As healthcare and higher education continue to evolve, this webinar introduces the newly developed Ecosystem of Excellence in Academic Nursing—a strategic, evidence-informed framework designed to help academic nursing programs align academic, operational, and community efforts to support the success of students, staff, and faculty. Building on AACN’s 2021 Inclusive Excellence Ecosystem, the updated model moves beyond awareness-raising to provide flexible, sustainable strategies tailored to a variety of institutional contexts. The webinar highlights the framework, a forthcoming online tool kit that offers adaptable strategies, scenarios, and implementation tools, along with a progress scorecard, to strengthen infrastructure, enhance teaching and scholarship, and foster environments where all members of the academic nursing community can thrive. Implementing the Blueprint Acute/Critical Care Nursing Practice Domains: Student role transition and professional identity This panel discussion will share data from an experimental study of three universities that incorporated the Nine Practice Domains of Acute and Critical Care Nursing from the Blueprint Call to Action into nursing coursework to address the gap between task-oriented clinical education and identity-focused, outcome-driven nursing education. Focusing on nursing’s positive contribution to patient outcomes may help to boost positivity in students’ professional identification with nursing, moderate their emotions and help students to identify educational needs as they transition to a professional nursing role. The Nine Practice Domains will help to fortify the focus on the essence of nursing to further support the operationalization of AACN Essentials within nursing education. Nurses Leading Ethical Guardrails for Generative AI: From Informed Consent to Practice-Ready Education AACN Essentials Domain 8 provided a strong foundation for digital health, informatics, and technology-enhanced practice as core nursing competencies. Since its release, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced rapidly while creating new opportunities to extend this foundation in ways that support informed consent, privacy, and transparency. This session will explore how nurses can carry forward the vision of Domain 8 by guiding the ethical integration of generative AI across education and into practice. Drawing the Master of Nursing Enrichment AI and Digital Health Initiative launched at Emory University, presenters will highlight approaches to cultivating AI fluency and ethical reasoning as part of practice-ready education. Publishing a DNP Project: Strategies for Success This presentation offers a roadmap for transforming a DNP project into a publishable manuscript. Participants will learn strategies for preparing the manuscript, selecting an appropriate journal, writing for the intended audience, and implementing and responding to reviewers’ comments. The session also highlights how to avoid rejection and offers actionable advice on navigating the publishing process. Strengthening Transitions: NRPs and Academic–Practice Partnerships in a Changing Healthcare Landscape Session description: The evolving healthcare landscape demands innovative strategies to prepare nursing students and new graduates for successful transition into practice. This session explores the role of Nurse Residency Programs (NRPs) in supporting early career nurses, highlights the value of academic–practice partnerships in aligning education with workforce readiness, and examines current and emerging uses of artificial intelligence (AI) in clinical practice. Training the Nurse as an Industrial Athlete This session will examine the common musculoskeletal injury patterns seen in nursing, then apply a safer lifting method and provide specific strength training examples targeting these areas of weakness. Through proper lifting methods and strengthening the common areas of injury, musculoskeletal injury risks can be reduced for nurses. Transforming Nursing Education: Integrating Motivational Interviewing Across the Curriculum This presentation actively demonstrates the theoretical basis of the concepts and application of Motivational Interviewing (MI) processes into basic and advanced nursing education as a competency-building initiative. When incorporated into Basic and Master's nursing education, as part of the curriculum, MI can assist nurses to provide therapeutic conversation, which promotes patient motivation to participate in their own patient-centered treatment plans and carry through, as well as establishing the therapeutic alliance, all promoting patient outcomes. Translating QI Theory into Practice: A Capstone Assignment for Competency-Based Nursing Education This session showcases a capstone assignment that bridges the gap between theoretical understanding and practical application of quality improvement (QI) in baccalaureate nursing education. Using the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Model for Improvement, participants will explore strategies to guide students in designing, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based QI projects within clinical settings. Educators will gain tools to assess student competency in data interpretation, teamwork, leadership, and performance improvement—core elements of The Essentials for competency-based nursing education.

3:30 - 4:30 p.m.	Emerging Solutions

4:45 - 5:45 p.m.	Plenary Getting Published: Tips for Success Publishing is an excellent method for the dissemination of the body of evidence that advances nursing science as well as a forum for sharing solutions to common problems. It is essential that faculty not only publish their scholarship, but also mentor students in the publishing process. In this session, Dr. Patricia Morton will focus on strategies to select a topic for publication, determine the appropriate audience for the topic, choose a suitable journal, and determine authorship.

6:00 p.m.	Networking Dinners (optional)

December 6

6:00 a.m.	Running and Walking Groups (optional)

7:30 - 9:30 a.m.	Light Continental Breakfast

7:30 - 8:30 a.m.	Coffee & Connect AACN Resources for Faculty Faculty of Minority Serving Schools

9:00 - 10:00 a.m.	Faculty Pulse: Hot Topics, Tensions, and Triumphs

10:30 - 11:30 a.m.	Closing Plenary Teaching Among Multiple Generations: Why Classroom Culture, Course Design, and Connection Matter Join a multigenerational duo to explore how nurse educators can better understand the unique attributes that multiple generations maintain, what holds their focus, how they respond to feedback, and why relevance and connection matter. Presented by a dynamic father-and-son research team, the speakers will share why some teaching methods no longer resonate and how small shifts in tone, structure, and purpose can lead to stronger engagement. Attendees will explore the growing intersection of mental health, professionalism, and readiness to learn, including how faculty can balance empathy with accountability to help students show up prepared and motivated. In this age of AI and “just-in-time” learning, educators will leave with practical strategies to adapt course design, communication, and classroom culture for a generation that values authenticity, efficiency, and purpose.

Continuing Education

The American Association of Colleges of Nursing is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

For questions, contact the AACN Conference Team today!

Phone: 202-463-6930 | Email: conferences@aacnnursing.org | Website: www.aacnnursing.org/conferences