Dr. Florence Luhanga is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Nursing, with expertise in qualitative research methodologies. Prior to joining the University of Regina, Dr. Luhanga taught as a lecturer at the Institute of Health Sciences in Botswana, a sessional instructor at the University of Alberta, and as an Assistant Professor at Laurentian University for five years (2006-2011) where she maintained an active program of research while teaching nursing courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her research has been primarily in the area of field teaching and unsafe student clinical behaviours. In her doctoral dissertation at the University of Alberta, Dr. Luhanga investigated challenges field teachers encounter when teaching students who display unsafe performance in the clinical setting. Since then she has served in the role of PI and Co-I on various locally, provincially, and Tri-council funded research projects. From 2014-to date, Dr. Luhanga has been involved in 19 grant applications, 6 as the PI and 13 as Co-I: She has been PI on two multidisciplinary(Education, Nursing & Social Work) research projects, exploring the issue of “failure to fail” underperforming students in professional programs. She has also explored the evidence related to clinical teaching models currently being used in nursing education and other health-related professional programs from a patient safety perspective, as well as bullying of nursing students during clinical experiences. Her other research interests relate to recruitment, retention and success of racialized students in undergraduate professional education programs. More recently Dr. Luhanga was a PI on a Mitacs Accelerate funded project, “Public perceptions about paramedic care in Saskatchewan,” working with research team from SCoP and SaskPoly, and supervising a post-doctoral research fellow. She was also co-applicant on a SSHRC IGD grant funded project, “Experiences of racialized students in education, nursing, and social work.” Currently Dr. Luhanga is a Co-applicant on a U of R President’s Seed Grant project exploring experiences of Black faculty members in academia. Dr. Luhanga has served in the roles of the research supervisor and co-supervisor for graduate students. Since the completion of her PhD in 2006, she has authored and co-authored more than 25 articles in peer-reviewed journals and presented her research findings at local, regional and international conferences.

Recruitment and Retention of Black Students in Nursing Programs in Saskatchewan

The project is a natural extension of two recent research projects entitled: “Experiences of racialized students in education, nursing, and social work” and “Nursing students’ experiences of bullying in clinical practice”. Despite increasing numbers of Black students in Canadian universities, enrolment and graduation of Black undergraduate nursing students remain low, partly attributed to anti-Black racism. The main aim of this project is to explore experiences of current and past Black students from undergraduate nursing programs in Saskatchewan. Findings will contribute to understanding factors affecting Black students’ retention and success and be used to inform a larger study of Black students’ experiences in Canadian undergraduate nursing programs