Background: The Institute of Medicine and numerous other healthcare organizations have identified the severe shortage of underrepresented minority healthcare professionals graduating into the workforce, and have called for a radical transformation of healthcare educational programs to make them more welcoming and supportive of underrepresented minority students. Purpose: The purpose of the study was to develop a reliable and valid measure of faculty response patterns to the needs of underrepresented minority nursing students. Theory: Yoder’s patterns of faculty interaction formed the conceptual basis for the development of this instrument. Methods: A mixed-method approach was used to develop this instrument. The first phase (item development phase) consisted of work with underrepresented minority nurse and faculty focus groups, individual interviews, and content experts to develop items. During the second phase of this study, psychometric evaluation of 134 survey responses from nursing faculty in the Northeast was conducted. Results: A 10-item scale was developed that measured faculty engagement with underrepresented minority nursing students. The Cronbach alpha for the EFURMS scale was .81. Principle component factor analysis with varimax rotation revealed a 3 factor solution that explained 66% of the variance in engagement with underrepresented minority students. The Cronbach alpha for the 3 factors ranged from .72-.78. The EFURM scale did not demonstrate ceiling or floor effects, or social desirability bias. More positive scores (higher EFURMS Scores) were associated with older faculty who had been teaching longer and had more experience teaching underrepresented minority students. Conclusion and Implications: The results of this study provide preliminary evidence for the reliability (internal consistency) and validity (content, criterion-related, and construct validity) of the 10-item EFURMS Scale. Further testing is needed to test the usefulness of this scale with wider samples of nursing faculty. With further development, the EFURMS Scale could be used to evaluate faculty readiness to engage with underrepresented minority students, and with studies to test the efficacy of interventions designed to improve faculty engagement with underrepresented minority students. A major finding of this study was the significance of age, years teaching, and experience teaching underrepresented minority students with EFURMS Scores suggesting that younger or less experienced faculty could benefit from mentoring by more seasoned faculty who have greater experience teaching underrepresented minority students.

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