Lack of professional caretakers means more opportunities for employment

A shortage of qualified nurses on the national level has left UA students with a cautious sense of optimism about their careers.

Three factors - insufficient recruiting, an increase in patients and a change in health care environment - have helped create the national shortage, said Suzanne Van Ort, University of Arizona College of Nursing dean.

Van Ort said the first problem indicates that nursing agencies need to start recruiting at an earlier age. The second problem is the aging of the existing nursing work force because most nurses are in their early 40s. And while the work force is getting older, the general population is doing the same, meaning more nurses will be needed when the baby boomers age, she said.

The third problem revolves around a shift in the health care environment.

"Twenty years ago, almost all nurses worked in hospitals - now only about 60 percent of nurses work in hospitals," she said.

Likins postpones FLA decision

SAS members feel 'betrayed,' say UA in violation of commitments

Any decision concerning the UA's affiliation with factory monitoring systems has been put off indefinitely, leaving some members of Students Against Sweatshops feeling ignored.

"It's a major betrayal," said Rachael Wilson, SAS spokeswoman and psychology graduate student, following an SAS meeting late last night to discuss Likins' response to their latest deadline. "That sounds like a stall tactic to me."

In an e-mail to the University of Arizona's deans, directors and department heads, received also by Wilson, Likins said that he won't decide whether the university will remain a member of the Fair Labor Association until he has met with the UA Human and Labor Rights Task Force.

"The task force has apparently made its choice in favor of the WRC (Worker Rights Consortium), but I have been invited by the chairman to meet with the task force for a deeper exploration of related issues," Likins said in the e-mail. "I have accepted that invitation, and will defer membership decisions until after that meeting until I have had an opportunity to consider the ramifications of those decisions."