MSN graduate Richard Burton Selected for 2020-2021 Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program

Burton completed the Nursing Program at CSU, Chico with his BSN in 2013 after which, he worked as an Registered Nurse at a local hospital for several years. Richard states that it was after those years of working as an RN that he “received [his] inspiration to become an educator.” Since that inspiration struck, Burton has been working for his alma mater, the CSUC School of Nursing, for 2 years after earning his MSN in Nursing Education.

Burton is currently enrolled in a Doctor of Nursing Practice program where he is doing research into “lowering nursing students’ anxiety while teaching them nursing skills.” His research project specifically “will evaluate the use of YouTube videos as an additional teaching modality in hopes to lower students' anxiety when tested on [nursing] skills.”

Burton expressed that he is “very honored and grateful” to be selected as a CDIP recipient, as he, himself is “a product of the CSUC system.” Upon graduation, he hopes to return to the Chico area and continue his work with the CSUC School of Nursing, and expresses his excitement to do so by saying, “I plan . . . to continue to give back to the school and area that have given me so much!”

Established in 1987, the Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program offers loans and mentorships by CSU faculty in an effort to increase the number of doctoral students applying for future CSU instructional faculty positions. These loans may be offered per year over a five year period, and are repayable over a fifteen-year period beginning one year after the completion or withdrawal from full-time doctoral studies. The loans are also forgivable at the rate of twenty percent for each year of full-time postdoctoral teaching employment within the CSU system or at the rate of ten percent for each year of part-time postdoctoral teaching employment within the CSU system. As of October 2020, over 2,000 doctoral students participated in this program with over 1,300 participants successfully earning their doctoral degrees; over eight hundred of these students have gone on to obtain employment in a California State University instructional faculty position.