Summer Faculty Development for Nurse Educators: Rest First, Then Grow

The semester is over. Grades are submitted. Your inbox is finally (mostly) under control. And if you're anything like most nursing and NP faculty I know, a small but persistent voice is already whispering: So, what are you going to do with the summer?

Maybe you've already started a mental list. Revise that one course that drove you absolutely crazy this semester. Finally knock out that certification. Read the stack of pedagogy articles you bookmarked in February and never opened. Catch up on your own clinical hours. Write the manuscript that's been living in a folder labeled "FINISH THIS."

Sound familiar?

None of those goals are wrong. Professional growth matters, and summer — for those of us who have it — can be a genuine gift of protected time. But if you sprint straight from finals week into a fully packed self-improvement agenda, you're not developing. You're just working under a different label.

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Why Faculty Skip Rest (And Pay for It in August)

Nurse educators are pretty much all high-achievers. It’s in our DNA. You finished an advanced degree while likely still working clinically. Many of you completed a doctoral program on top of that. You're juggling clinical practice, course design, student advising, committee work, and a significant amount of emotional labor that never shows up in your job description.

And so "rest" gets framed as something to earn, or worse, something to get squeezed in between productive things. A weekend at the beach before you dive into course revisions. A few days off before the CEU marathon begins.

But rest that's sandwiched between obligations isn't really rest. It's a pause. And pauses don't refill the tank. They just delay the drain.

The result? Many faculty hit August feeling like they didn't actually recover. They head into fall orientation already running on fumes, wondering why summer flew by without ever feeling restorative.

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The Framework: Rest First, Then Grow

This is not a complicated concept, but it does require intentionality (especially for people who are wired to keep moving).

Phase 1: Decompress (Weeks 1–2)

Give yourself permission to do nothing career-adjacent for at least the first one to two weeks after the semester ends. This means no course revisions, no manuscript drafting, no professional development webinars.

What it does include: sleep, movement, time outside, meals that aren't eaten at your desk, and whatever fills you up personally — family, hobbies, travel, reading fiction, staring at the ceiling. Your nervous system needs to register that the semester is actually over before it can shift into a productive mode that's sustainable.

Phase 2: Reflect (Weeks 2–3)

Before you start building anything new, take time to look back at the year. What worked in your courses? What consistently frustrated you or your students? Where did you feel most energized as a faculty member, and where did you feel most depleted?

Grab a journal or open a blank document and sit with these questions without rushing to fix anything yet. Reflection is its own form of professional development, and it's the kind most faculty skip because it doesn't produce any obvious deliverable.

But is does produce clarity. And clarity is what makes your summer growth intentional rather than reactive.

Phase 3: Grow (Rest of the Summer)

Now you're ready. With some rest behind you and some genuine reflection to guide your priorities, you can approach professional development with focus instead of frantic energy.

Pick one or two meaningful goals — not seven! Maybe it's a substantial course revision for a course that truly needs it. Maybe it's a certification, a pedagogy book, or a manuscript submission. Maybe it's connecting with colleagues, attending a conference, or finally building out that resource library you've been meaning to create.

The key is that growth in this phase feels energizing rather than exhausting.

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A Word About Guilt

If reading this made a small part of you uncomfortable… if phrases like "rest first" or "nothing career-adjacent" created a flicker of anxiety… that's worth noticing.

Faculty burnout doesn't usually announce itself dramatically. It accumulates quietly across semesters of never fully recovering, never fully turning off, and treating every break as a runway for the next sprint.

You are not failing your students, your institution, or your profession by resting. In fact, the research on educator effectiveness is pretty clear: sustainable, present, energized faculty are better faculty. Rest isn't the opposite of professional commitment. It's what makes it possible.

Give yourself the summer to actually recover. Your future students — and your future self — will thank you.

Jacklyn DelPrete, EdD, CRNP, FNP-C is a family nurse practitioner, full-time graduate nursing faculty member, and founder of The Elevated NP. Questions or topics you'd like covered? Reach out at elevatednpteam@gmail.com.