In April 2021, AACN member schools voted overwhelmingly to endorse The Essentials: Core Competencies for Professional Nursing Education, changing the trajectory of academic nursing.

To that end, this article provides an overview of the newly revised Essentials, discusses considerations and implications for nursing regulation, and puts forth recommendations for boards of nursing.

The new Essentials provide educators with guidelines for curriculum changes, featuring ten broad domains with included competencies and sub-competencies across four spheres of healthcare, the lifespan, and among diverse patient populations.

The purpose of this manuscript is to synthesize the educational recommendations from the FON report and provide strategies for schools of nursing to chart a future path to achieve health equity.

These competencies are described for the academic nurse educator that is responsible for facilitating learning primarily in the clinical setting, reports to an academic program of nursing education, and has input into the assessments of nursing learner clinical performance.

The cornerstone of the initiative is this committee, which was tasked with producing a report containing recommendations for an action-oriented blueprint for the future of nursing, including changes in public and institutional policies at the national, state, and local levels (Box S-1).

The new Essentials Model of Nursing Education outlines how to prepare nurses at entry and advanced levels, including how to move nurses seamlessly across the educational continuum.

Since 1986, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) has published the Essentials series that provides the educational framework for the preparation of nurses at four‐year colleges and universities.

This article offers a roadmap for improving nursing program outcomes, including methods to analyze factors contributing to declining performance and how to identify and use targeted, evidence-based strategies that help programs meet their intended outcomes.

This article highlights the utility of the NURS model as applied by educators other than the theorist; identifies strengths and gaps; poses priority focus areas; and introduces tips and recommendations for implementing responsive, responsible high-quality action innovations and research (AIR).