The dates are set for the new Nursology Forums to begin in January 2027, and repeat monthly through June! Here are the dates and times, and a brief overview for the January-June 2027 Forums – mark the dates on your calendar and watch for details as each Forum gets closer! All of the information about the Forums will be posted on the Forum website

January 21, 2027 – 11 am – 12 pm (Central)
Title – Positioning Nursing Knowledge Where it Belongs – in Nursing!
Presenter – Peggy L. Chinn, RN, PhD, FAAN
Advance Registration link

There is a tendency for nurse educators, nurses in practice, and nurses in research and administration, to dismiss nursing theory as irrelevant to their work. This Forum will challenge this tendency, provide compelling reasons to shift this tendency and will provide an overview of the resources available on Nursology.net and on SONEI.org (website for the Society for Nursing Ethics International).

February 12, 2027, 9:00am-10:30am (Central); 10am-11:30am (Eastern)
Title – Who Gets Credit for Nursing Science? Identity, Impact, and Stewardship in an Interdisciplinary World
Presenters – Leslie H. Nicoll, PhD, MBA, RN, FAAN, Moderator, with panelists Stijn Blot, PhD, RN; Rita Pickler, PhD, RN, FAAN; Max Topaz, PhD, MA, RN, FAAN, FIAHSI, FACMI

Nursing science increasingly operates in an interdisciplinary environment in which nurse scientists collaborate and publish across medicine, public health, informatics, epidemiology, implementation science, and other fields. Although this reach reflects the success and relevance of nursing scholarship, it may also make nursing’s scientific contributions less visible and its disciplinary boundaries less distinct. Citation and classification systems may fail to identify influential work as nursing science; nurse scientists themselves may struggle to articulate what distinguishes nursing’s contribution; and questions arise about what must be preserved for nursing to remain a recognizable and viable scientific discipline. Attention is needed now because interdisciplinary science is expanding rapidly, while systems for evaluating research influence, allocating resources, and defining disciplinary knowledge are also changing. Nursing needs to consider how it can extend its scientific influence beyond disciplinary boundaries while sustaining the knowledge, identity, and scholarly infrastructure necessary for the discipline to survive and contribute to better care.

March 19, 2027, 12 pm (Central) to 1 pm (Central)
Title – Motivations and Experiences of Pursuing a PhD After DNP Completion: Role of Theory, Practice, and Research
Presenters – Rachell Nguyen, DNP, PhD Student; Karen J. Foli, PhD, RN, ANEF, FAAN

Current trends in doctoral nursing studies show a pattern of decreased Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) enrollment over the past 11 years and an increase in Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) degrees (American Association of Colleges of Nursing, 29 July, 2026). However, there is a small but growing number of DNP-to-PhD candidates who are choosing this route (Kirkland et al., 2026). Therefore, this Forum session will address the motivations and perspectives of a DNP-prepared nurse who is pursuing their PhD.

April 16, 2027 – 12 – 1 pm (Central)
Title – The status of faculty readiness to teach theory in undergraduate and graduate nursing programs
Presenter – Marie Gill, PhD, RN; Janet Tucker, PhD, RN; Jordan Cunningham, PhD, RN

The AACN Essentials require integrating nursing theory across the curriculum, yet we do not know how prepared faculty feel to teach theory in undergraduate and graduate courses. To support effective integration, we must assess faculty’s perceived readiness to teach theory and identify the resources they need to succeed.

MAY 20, 2027 – 1 – 2 pm (Central)
Title – Unknowing to Empowering: Pre-licensure Student Reflections on Community Health Experiences in America’s Most Segregated City
Presenter – Robin R. Walter, PhD, RN, CNE

Pre-licensure baccalaureate students can have a wide range of experiences in community health placements. Unlike acute-care clinicals, community health introduces students to population-level health, social determinants of health, prevention, and community-based care, which can feel unfamiliar at first. It also may expose students to real-life health inequities, unfamiliar cultures and communities, and prompt reflective experiences in which personal assumptions and biases are examined, perhaps for the first time. This forum highlights the experiences and voices of students as they reflect on various community health placements in America’s most segregated city. Attendees will gain a greater understanding of the student experience, their critical reflections on power, and actionable suggestions to ground future community health placements in emancipatory nursing.

JUNE 2 (or 8) between 12 pm and 5 pm Central
Title – Nursing Ethics: Light from 164 Candles
Presenter – Marsha Fowler, PhD, MDiv, MS, RN, FAAN, FRSA

In the 1960s bioethics colonized nursing, co-opting its then century-old nursing ethics. Nurses in ethics, in both theory and practice, have come to understand the insufficiencies of bioethics, and the need to recover, reclaim, and renew our own native nursing ethics. The very structure of ethics extends from the “bedside to the world” providing both a warrant and a mandate for immediate care to social, political, global, and environmental engagement.

The overall plan to continue the Forums is in place as well. Every January the Call for Proposals will be open for Forums the following July-December. Every June the Call for Proposals will open for Forum the following January-June. Forum planning is managed as a joint effort of the Nursology.net Advisory Team, and the Margaret A. Newman Center for Nursing Theory. Details about the Forums are posted on the Forum Website, inherited from the former Nursing Theory Conference site. So stay tuned!