Thank you so much for inviting me to be with you today. I am delighted to be with a group of people whose mission in life is to serve others. Service to others is the greatest honor, the greatest adventure a person can pursue. The North Carolina Community College System is proud to play a significant role in preparing students to enter the noblest of professions – nursing.

"Caring and Sharing" is a very appropriate theme for your meeting today. Caring and sharing may seem like a bland term…some cynics may even scoff at it. However, I think of caring and sharing as a bold phrase. It takes a lot of courage to care about others. Nurses have always had that courage, the courage to face a crisis, and to show compassion for those who are sick or in need. The current war with Iraq reminds us of how fragile life is and how the courage and compassion of nurses are needed more than ever.

Nurses have always been at the forefront of historical events…that fact was probably never more true than during what may have been the greatest medical crisis in American history: the Civil War. More than 600,000 soldiers died in both the Union and Confederate armies. Both women and men served as nurses in hospitals and on the battlefield. Two of the most famous nurses served during this war, two nurses whose work still inspires us today: Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix. Barton served as a nurse for the Union Army. She later answered letters from more than 63,000 relatives of missing soldiers. President Lincoln put her in charge of coordinating the government's efforts to find those soldiers. Of course, we now remember her as the founder of the American Red Cross. The writer Louisa Mae Alcott and the poet Walt Whitman both served as nurses during the Civil War, as did countless others whose names have been lost to history.

Nurses have risked their lives to give care to the sick and wounded in every war since…the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War. No doubt the current war with Iraq will find nurses in Baghdad ready to help wounded soldiers and ready to help the Iraqi people recover. No one can deny the importance of a compassionate, competent, and courageous nurse.

Nursing is indeed a noble profession. And just like teachers, nurses never know where their influence stops. The writer Francois Mauriac once wrote that "no love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever." So it is with nurses. A nurse takes care of a patient. That patient and that patient's family are changed forever.

The opportunity to have such an influence on the lives of so many is not one that many of us would pass up. And yet as you know, we are facing a nursing shortage in North Carolina. Recent data from the North Carolina Center for Nursing reveals there is a 17 percent job vacancy rate for LPN's in the state. Of the hospitals surveyed, 33 percent reported an increasing number of LPN vacant positions. At such a time of great shortage, it is important that we continue to give strong support to our LPN programs throughout the System. We should never eliminate any LPN program or the LPN credential.

A recent report from the American Nurses Association addresses the impact of an aging population on various health populations. Supply and demand is becoming a major issue as the demand for nurses increases while supply decreases. We are also facing the "aging out" of nurse educators. The average age of nurse educators in our colleges is 48. Considering the current trend of retirement at an early age, this presents a major problem when we look to the future of our programs and the availability of faculty.

The System is committed to recruiting and re-educating top notch nursing faculty. The addition of system level resource support for faculty recruitment and retention will be vital in the years to come. This support will enable colleges to showcase positive programs with great career benefits to the citizens of North Carolina. No entity in our society will make a greater positive impact on reducing the shortage than you.

While the challenges of this nursing shortage seem overwhelming, I am confident that together we can find a way to lay out successful strategies for combating this crisis. We have every reason to be optimistic because of the enormous success the community college nursing programs have achieved in recent years.

In 2002, over 700 students graduated from the 34 practical nursing programs in the community college system. Nineteen of those programs reported a perfect passing rate of 100 percent. A review of the National Council Licensure Examination for Practical Nurses for the past five years, shows that the aggregate passing rate for the North Carolina Community College System has been higher than the national aggregate passing rate.

What is most gratifying to me is that you, as our community college nursing personnel, provide opportunities for local citizens who wish to pursue a degree at their local community colleges. Often, those graduates of our nursing programs will find employment in their hometowns, thus helping to meet the needs of the local health care facilities.

Moreover, community college nursing programs make a nursing career possible for many place-bound, non- traditional students who return to college mid-life or after getting their children in school. Community colleges across North Carolina are finding increases in the numbers of students in health science programs….many of whom were lost jobs due to factories closing. These students and others are interested in pursuing a high-demand, fulfilling career. .

As you meet with your colleagues in the next few days, I am sure that you will engage in many stimulating discussions about how to confront the current nursing shortage. As we explore new directions, we must go forward boldly and consider new approaches to challenges. I know that you go forth with the continuing commitment to make the nursing profession the best that it can be. I applaud each of you for your decision to become a nurse, to be caring, and to be an educator, especially in the Community College System.

You care and share in the lives of future nurses everyday. And those future nurses will touch lives you may never see. Your influence is immeasurable. My respect and best wishes go with you in the days to come.

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