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Coordinating Board highlights 'Snappy' model to ease nursing faculty shortages
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Summary
Sam Houston State and partners presented SNAPI ("Snappy"), a time‑buyout clinical‑instruction model funded by the coordinating board's Nursing Innovation Grant Program that aims to expand clinical faculty capacity by embedding bedside nurses as paid clinical instructors; presenters described positive pilot results and a rural demonstration approved by the Texas Board of Nursing.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board on Tuesday heard a detailed presentation on SNAPI, a shared nurse academic practice partnership that contracts time from bedside nurses to serve as clinical instructors and seeks to expand nursing education capacity across the state.
Devin Berry, director for the Sam Houston State University School of Nursing, described SNAPI as a public‑private model funded through rounds of the board's Nursing Innovation Grant Program. He said the model addresses three barriers that historically prevent bedside nurses from teaching—compensation, workload and scheduling—by retaining nurses as hospital employees, coordinating schedules via memoranda of understanding and providing structured onboarding and mentoring.
Berry said a feasibility study run across four health systems produced measurable operational results: an estimated 1.7 new faculty full‑time equivalents per semester, a 10% reduction in clinical faculty need, high stakeholder survey responses and what he called strong employer outcomes. "Students reported a net promoter score of plus 86," Berry said, adding that more than 30% of participating students were subsequently hired by the Snappy clinical systems.
A Sam Houston State student, Jessica Bova, told the board the model changed her clinical experience: "Because the instructor is already part of that hospital team, there's no disconnect. Students aren't visiting. They're stepping into a real workflow with someone who knows the environment." Berry and partners said the approach improves student integration, builds pipelines into local health systems and can reduce faculty burnout for clinicians who teach.
Memorial Hermann's Dr. Danielle Taylor, the healthcare system's director of academic affiliation, said the model creates value for health systems and students and helps retain nurses by providing meaningful teaching roles without a financial penalty. Berry also highlighted a rural pilot that he said secured Texas Board of Nursing approval in October 2025 to allow BSN‑prepared bedside nurses to serve as clinical instructors under an approved pilot—an exception to the standard requirement that clinical instructors be master's‑prepared.
Board members asked about scaling and costs. Berry said SNAPI leveraged MOUs to standardize roles and funding flows and that program design included year‑long convenings of clinical and academic leaders to resolve operational and legal issues. He said the project used performance metrics and partnership agreements to make the model replicable across sites.
The presentation concluded with a request for continued board support as SNAPI seeks further rounds of grant funding and cost estimates for sustained statewide deployment. The board received the item as information; no formal vote on funding followed at the meeting.
