Report of the 2007-2008 Academic Affairs Committee

BACKGROUND AND CHARGES

According to the Bylaws of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the Academic Affairs Committee shall consider:

the intellectual, social, and personal aspects of pharmaceutical education. It is expected to identify practices, procedures, and guidelines that will aid faculties in developing students to their maximum potential. It will also be concerned with curriculum analysis, development, and evaluation beginning with the pre-professional level and extending through professional and graduate education. The Committee shall seek to identify issues and problems affecting the administrative and financial aspects of member institutions. The Academic Affairs Committee shall extend its attention beyond intra-institutional matters of colleges of pharmacy to include interdisciplinary concerns with the communities of higher education and especially with those elements concerned with health education.

Consistent with a theme of exploring how AACP might foster organizational improvement and success among its institutional members, President Cynthia Raehl asked all standing committees of the Association including the 2007-08 AACP Academic Affairs Committee to critically review the past work of Academic Affairs Committees as reflected in reports published from 1999 through 2007. The focus of this critical review was to study the progress made on recommendations put forward, and recommend concrete action steps for implementation of those recommendations still unfulfilled that will significantly advance the Association's highest priorities. Furthermore the AACP Board identified those priorities to be progress in three core areas: i) faculty recruitment and retention, ii) assessment program maturation and iii) quality assurance in experiential education.

COMMITTEE PROCESS

Background information and resource materials were distributed to Committee members prior to a conference call on November 5, 2007. During the conference call Committee members shared preliminary views and discussed their approach to the charge. The Committee completed its subsequent work through conference calls and electronic communications.

After reviewing its charges, the Committee decided to take the following approach to review a total of eight Academic Affairs Committee reports from 1999-2007^1-8 which were focused on the following topics:

• 1999-2000 – Integration of general ability based outcomes into pharmacy curricula.

• 2000-2001 – Use of courseware technology in pharmacy schools and how professional values can be inculcated in students via the use of technology. Implementation of AACP Teaching and Learning Roundtables.

• 2001-2002 – How curriculum has been revised to include information on pharmacogenomics and pharmacogenetics.

• 2002-2003 – All of the standing committees were charged with identifying the leadership characteristics and skill sets needed by deans, chairs, vice chairs, assistant and associate deans, directors and other aspiring administrators. The Academic Affairs Committee was asked to focus on specific aspects of leadership that impinge upon faculty recruitment, hiring, development, and retention, as well as the characteristics and skills that enable leaders to acquire resources essential to develop faculty and maintain quality instructional programs.

• 2003-2004 – Recommend appropriate assessment measures, indicators and processes to guide institutions in responding to the question “how do you know if you have a quality program?”.

• 2004-2005 – Explore how schools and colleges can foster interest in and preparation for careers in academic pharmacy and facilitate progressive development of faculty skills across an individual's academic career.

• 2005-2006 – How academic pharmacy can help to achieve the JCPP vision.

• 2006-2007 – Complete an environmental scan of how the IOM competencies have been integrated into pharmacy curricular, how curricular has changed since Background Paper II, examine what curricular design innovations have taken place and plan a summit to continue the discussion of curricular issues.

The Committee formed four teams consisting of two Committee members that reviewed two reports each. Four reports (2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2004-2005, 2005-2006) were determined to have particular relevance to the three identified priorities for 2008-2009 by the Chair. Each team was assigned to review one of these four reports in addition to a second report from the remaining four years. Each team was asked to determine the following in the review of their respective reports:

1. What recommendations were provided in the assigned reports and if action had been taken to implement the recommendations.

2. If recommendations have not been implemented, the team should consider the relevance of the recommendations and determine what the priority should be placed on its implementation.

3. If a recommendation was implemented, where is the evidence regarding its implementation (i.e. AACP website, publication in AJPE or AACP programming, AACP policy adoption).

4. What suggestions or policy recommendations were provided in the report? Are the relevant to the three identified priorities? If they are, should the suggestions be included as a priority for 2008-2009? Were policy recommendations adopted?

Each team submitted its findings on a data collection template form to the Committee Chair for compilation. To find evidence of implementation of the recommendations, AACP Staff searched the American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education (AJPE) www.ajpe.org, the AACP website www.aacp.org, AACP programming files related to Annual and Interim Meetings, and other pertinent sources.

Subsequently, the Committee met several times to discuss the findings and come to consensus on its relevance to the three identified priorities, developed a ranked list of these report recommendations inclusive of suggestions and policy statements, and identified recommendations that have not been implemented (e.g., those for which no evidence of action was found). In addition, the Committee provided recommendations regarding actions that can be taken by AACP regarding the reports' recommendations as well as their implementation status. Based on the evaluation and discussion of the Committee members, the attached table outlines the Committee's findings and recommendations that should be considered for action by AACP in 2008-2009.

FACULTY RECRUITMENT

As identified by the AACP Board the three areas of priority for 2008-2009 were reviewed: i) faculty recruitment and retention, ii) assessment program maturation and iii) quality assurance in experiential education. Interestingly, all three areas have been the focus of recent AACP Institutes: 2008 (faculty recruitment, retention, and enrichment), 2007 (accreditation and assessment) and 2006 (experiential education). Not surprisingly the top areas identified by the Academic Affairs Committee for relevance to 2008-2009 were related to faculty recruitment and retention (identified in 14 of the first priorities) and thus the focus of this report.

Demand

Recognizing the need to track pharmacy faculty vacancies, in 2002 AACP introduced the Survey of Vacant Budgeted and Lost Faculty Positions. In 2006-07⁹, a total of 595 vacant and/or lost positions were reported, up from 429 in 2005-06.¹⁰ In fall of 2007, there were 4,647 full-time and 483 part-time faculty across the 98 colleges and schools of pharmacy.¹¹ Of the 595 vacancies, the most were reported in clinical science/pharmacy practice (51.3 percent). Top reported reasons for all vacancies included: individual in position moved to a faculty position at another academic pharmacy program (11.9 percent) or an individual retired (10.3 percent). Of concern was the impression that positions remained vacant because there were not enough qualified candidates in the pool (i.e., candidates judged unable to meet the institution's expectations/requirements for the position, inadequate number of qualified candidates in the discipline, lack of response to position announcement) as indicated by 37.4 percent of respondents.

Recognizing that the total number of academic pharmacy programs today is near 110 (including emerging programs) it is quite plausible that there are nearly 1,000 pharmacy faculty vacancies at colleges and schools of pharmacy going into the 2008-09 academic year. Thus it is imperative that leaders in academic pharmacy begin to think both from tactical and strategic perspectives to address the multitude of issues that relate to faculty recruitment, retention, and enrichment within their organizations and across the Academy.

Supply

As described in the 2004-05 Academic Affairs Committee Report,⁶ there are at least four student populations where future academicians might be identified, mentored, and nurtured to an academic career path in pharmacy education: (1) professional (doctor of pharmacy) students; (2) postgraduate students in the clinical sciences and administrative sciences (i.e., residents, fellows, and those in clinical or administrative graduate programs) who typically have a foundation in pharmacy; (3) graduate students in the pharmaceutical sciences with a pharmacy background; and (4) graduate students in the pharmaceutical sciences with backgrounds outside of pharmacy (e.g., chemistry, biology, chemical engineering). In addition to these four student populations, there is also the possibility of attracting practitioners who desire a career change and who have harbored at one time or another, a yearning for the academic life.

In trying to fill the pipeline, for the past four years AACP has conducted the Wal-Mart Scholars Program for pharmacy and graduate students as well as post-graduate residents the opportunity to spend time with a faculty mentor at the AACP Annual Meeting and Seminars with the objective of strengthening students' interest in careers in academic pharmacy. The goal of the Scholars Program is to help colleges and schools of pharmacy ensure there are an adequate number of well-prepared individuals who aspire to join the faculties at pharmacy institutions across the country. In 2007 over 50 student/faculty pairs were supported in part to attend the AACP Annual Meeting and Seminars through such scholarships with an anticipated equal number of awards for 2008.

The collective group of approximately 5,000 faculty (in conjunction with many volunteer pharmacy preceptors) at the colleges and schools of pharmacy are responsible for indoctrinating the knowledge, skills, and abilities requisite for the future generation of pharmacy practitioners, represented in the 9,812 PharmD graduates in 2007.¹² Given the over 100 colleges and schools of pharmacy today, if one additional student per class were attracted to an academic career in the pharmaceutical sciences and one additional student per class were attracted to the clinical or social sciences, following the requisite graduate education and post-graduate training, an additional supply of 200 new pharmacy faculty annually could be projected for the years to come (Table 1). Thus, by 2015 the potential for 1,000 new academicians in pharmacy education could be realized.

Table 1.

Projected Impact of Additional Students Entering Pharmaceutical Sciences and Clinical and Social Sciences

Academic pharmacy must also look to “non-traditional educators” to fulfill the void of pharmacy faculty positions present in colleges and schools of pharmacy. Such individuals may have forewent the direct migration from professional or graduate school into higher education, yet accumulated years of expertise in their respective areas. As such, there are many talented clinicians, pharmaceutical scientists, and entrepreneurs that could bring a unique wealth of experiences to the educational and research programs in colleges and schools of pharmacy.

However the academic community must be welcoming of these individuals that desire to transition into various roles of teaching, practice, and research. As argued by one pharmacy academician, “It is our responsibility as faculty colleagues and administrators to serve as vocal and enthusiastic advocates for those individuals who transition into our colleges and schools.”¹³ The establishment of mentoring programs within a comprehensive faculty development program is critical to many faculty members,^14,15 especially those coming into their first academic appointment. Likewise a comprehensive faculty development program would be assumed to be very desirable for those coming from outside academia.

FACULTY RETENTION AND ENRICHMENT

One of the greatest assets to any organization are the human resources (i.e, faculty and staff). The costs to recruit for open vacancies in higher education can be extremely expensive. At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, across the disciplines, Madison figures that it spends an average of $1.2-million in start-up costs for each new professor. It typically takes eight years for a professor to bring in enough research money to cover that cost… the university loses many professors before they even pay off the initial investment.”¹⁶ The expenditures associated with the recruitment of faculty are highly dependent on the mission of the institution but the indirect “hidden” costs (e.g., double teaching loads, burnout, intellectual loose, etc) can be extremely costly as well. Therefore a prudent measure is to attempt to retain current faculty and staff in colleges and schools of pharmacy.

New approaches to reward systems that often have not been available historically in our institutions need to be developed and embraced (e.g, merit systems). Promotion and tenure guidelines need to be reviewed to allow individuals the opportunity for success, including the openness for non-tenure and non-faculty appointments where appropriate to those appointees not desiring the traditional tenure-track system in higher education. The use of non full-time appointments must also be examined and the ability for such individuals to remain employed in the private sector requires consideration as well.

The use of sabbaticals needs to embraced in colleges and schools of pharmacy, as their use is often more accepting in the cultures of undergraduate programs on campuses though their use is elusive in professional education.¹⁷ Such sabbaticals need not be full year or even six months in duration. The use of mini-sabbaticals throughout a faculty member's appointment should be explored. The ability of faculty to reinvigorate or enrich their teaching or scholarly pursuits needs to be fostered. For clinical faculty this may be the ability to become certified in a given clinical area or gain experience in a new clinical service or patient population. Whereas for basic and social science faculty this may be the acquisition of new research techniques or methodologies or the establishment of relationships for research collaborations. In essence these sabbaticals can occur in “micro-bursts” throughout a faculty member's career. With this approach an organization's perspective on the return on investment need not be calculated over multiple years, thus the willingness to offer sabbaticals may be enhanced.

CONCLUSON

In the coming decade key challenges in academic pharmacy will remain the recruitment of sufficient numbers of qualified faculty in all disciplines; assuring a diverse and cultural competent faculty; and attracting student leaders to faculty positions in academia. The recommendations and suggested actions that can be taken by the Academy have been identified in this report. Swift action is needed among all pharmacy faculty and administrators, as the time to contemplate and study has passed.

Appendix 1. Implementation of the 2000-2007 Professional Affairs Committees' Recommendations.