Report of the 2018-2019 Strategic Engagement Standing Committee

Abstract

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. Strategic engagement is critical to the success of colleges and schools of pharmacy in expanding pharmacy and public health practice, meeting programmatic needs, and fulfilling institutional missions. The AACP 2019-2020 Strategic Engagement Committee was charged with exploring faculty leadership and development as they relate to strategic engagement, considering challenges and barriers to faculty participation and identifying successes in faculty engagement and opportunities for professional development. The committee reviewed literature and examples regarding strategic engagement across academic pharmacy, with strategic engagement understood as being part of the service mission of academic institutions. The committee found faculty service is often not rewarded or recognized equally to efforts in research and education, including in promotion and tenure. The perceived low value often accorded to strategic engagement efforts, coupled with lack of time and low priority for the work, are barriers to faculty participation in strategic engagement. Service missions thrive when supported by institutional culture, faculty and alumni role models and administration priorities. The committee also found that there is no defined path to leadership in most national organizations, a limited number of leadership positions and a lack of awareness regarding these positions. However, strategic engagement with organizations can open doors and increase visibility for faculty, leading to enhanced opportunities and improved scholarship. Engagement efforts can be particularly successful when aligned with faculty interests and school and departmental priorities.

Based on the committee’s work, the following recommendations are provided to AACP for consideration.

1. Recommendation #1 – AACP should create a pathway or exemplar stories of members who have become leaders within the Academy including institutional and volunteer leadership roles.

2. Recommendation #2 – AACP should provide an organizational chart to outline the reporting structures, as well as the policy development process to help members understand how AACP works and points of entry for involvement.

3. Recommendation #3 – AACP should develop an initiative to “groom” faculty for leadership roles including providing tools/training programs for emerging leaders within the Academy.

4. Recommendation #4 - AACP should consider creating a community for targeted groups of faculty, eg, tenured/tenure-track and non-tenure track to address leadership development and engagement based on member interest.

5. Recommendation #5 - AACP should establish a “service mentors” program to match current and past leaders with members interested in enhancing their involvement in the association.

INTRODUCTION AND COMMITTEE CHARGES

According to the Bylaws of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the Strategic Engagement Committee “will advise the Board of Directors on the formation of positions on matters of public policy and strategies to advance those positions to the public and private sectors on behalf of academic pharmacy.”

President Allen presented the 2018-2019 committee with the following charges:

1. Explore faculty leadership and development as it relates to their active participation in strategic engagement-related activities.

2. Discuss challenges and barriers for faculty to engage in such strategic engagement-related activities, including but not limited to community-based and state and national professional organizations.

3. Identify strategic engagement successes and non-traditional opportunities for faculty and schools to utilize, including implications for faculty advancement (P&T).

PROCESS

Each year, AACP members are provided an opportunity to respond to an open call to express their interest in serving on various committees. AACP staff, along with the incoming President, determine which AACP members are assigned to those committees based on their expertise, but also to represent a variety of different schools and colleges of pharmacy. Members identified for service on the committee are then contacted directly to verify their interest and availability.

Committee members were notified of their official selection prior to the AACP Annual Meeting, which provided some opportunity for committee members to meet in person and conduct brief introductions. Members met virtually in early Fall (2018) to review charges and begin thinking of ways in which committee charges could be achieved. The full committee met in person for two days in October of 2018 to begin work in earnest, determine which committee members would be responsible for which sections of the report, and establish a timeline. Committee members worked in teams from October through March to complete their respective sections of the report.

STRATEGIC ENGAGEMENT

AACP’s 2004-05 Argus Commission defined community engagement as “the application of institutional resources to address and solve challenges facing communities through collaboration with these communities.”¹ More recently, AACP has streamlined its processes and aligned its resources to broaden its focus from advocacy to strategic engagement and position itself to prioritize, initiate, and maintain initiatives, as needed. 2018-2019 Strategic Engagement Standing Committee Charges include the exploration of faculty leadership and development as they relate to active participation in strategic engagement-related activities, challenges and barriers to engagement in such activities, and strategic engagement successes and non-traditional opportunities. Previous AACP Standing Committees tackled multiple important and high priority issues engaging internal stakeholders and external partners. From these discussions, knowledge, guidance, and specific recommendations related to engagement were shared with the Academy. The following brief descriptions highlight their main charge(s) regarding similar areas.

Examples from the Academy

Although engagement and service are often components of promotion and tenure, they may not elicit the same level of attention and impact as teaching, clinical practice, and research. Considering external review processes associated with promotion review by colleges of pharmacies, an evaluation of a candidate’s external service by reviewers was requested at 73% of institutions compared to 100% for research, teaching, and clinical practice.²

LEADERSHIP AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Definition Within the Academy

The three-legged stool is an analogy to typical academic missions of teaching, research, and service. The stool analogy is misleading in that the legs of the stool are not all the same size nor do they represent the same level of importance among faculty. For faculty hired under different tracks, the percent effort and the evaluation of performance will vary among these missions. The typical research-focused tenure track faculty member may have more than 50% of their effort devoted to research, with the teaching and service activities adding up to the remainder. Faculty who are successful in obtaining salary offsets typically increase their percent time in research (60-80%) while decreasing service or teaching activity. Clinical faculty are often asked to establish a practice which adds a fourth leg to the stool. This practice percentage varies greatly and may also be associated with student Introductory Pharmacy Practice Experience (IPPE) and Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience (APPE) rotations. Most of the remaining time for a practice faculty is likely devoted to didactic teaching and service on committees or in administration. Research or scholarly activity often is less than 20% effort. Other faculty types include lecturers and research track faculty who devote 80-100% effort to these specific endeavors.

Clearly, faculty percent effort has a relationship to productivity within each mission and very few faculty members truly have an even split between the effort areas. In the past, individuals who accepted administrative and leadership roles often just added an overload effort. Faculty members were advised to focus on areas related to productivity and not be too involved early in their career in ‘service commitments’ as they would not get promoted or tenured based on this effort. There is more recognition today that not all service is equivalent and that faculty who take on leadership or administrative roles to advance their discipline, practice, or the university outreach mission are important to the academic enterprise. Universities more commonly recognize the importance of “strategic engagement” as critical to their overall success. Among traditional and research-focused colleges, there is a heightened sensitivity to the importance of strategic engagement and how the college contributes to what is often recognized as their “land-grant” mission. This has resulted in varying degrees of acceptance that faculty – many of whom have significant effort devoted to outreach and engagement or administration and are performing those assignments at an exceptional level – should have service recognized through the promotion and tenure process. While it is still true that this is not universally accepted among traditional tenure-track faculty members as being on par with excellence in research or teaching, it is also not entirely ignored as in the past. Among private schools or those that are more focused on teaching than research, the importance of service and practice may be even more evident.

The shared governance model is typical for universities that follow a tenure-track faculty appointment and evaluation process. “Shared” governance gives individuals a share in decision-making processes, often through elected representation, and allows certain groups to exercise primary responsibility for specific areas of decision making.³ In this model, the traditional leadership by position (Dean, Department Chair) structure is expected and these positions usually have an augmentation for the individuals assigned to the positions. The Dean position is typically a full-time appointment, but the models vary for associate or assistant deans, department and division chairs, or program directors. One common model is to have such administrative positions be appointed for 25-50% effort with the remaining time devoted to teaching, research, or practice as is most appropriate for the individual’s career trajectory. A more recent change is to recognize the importance of personal leadership and the ability to influence the organization without having a position of leadership. Many faculty members serve their colleges through the power of their personal leadership and many of the training programs available for faculty development emphasize the importance of this ability. When a faculty member has contributed significantly to the college in positions that take significant amounts of time, it is important that the Dean and Department Chair put that effort into context during the promotion and tenure process.

Importance of Leadership and Professional Development

Leadership as it relates to faculty professional development is defined by Standards 2016⁴ to include participation in governance and role modeling for students within a culture that is supportive of professional development (Standards 8.7, 9, 9.1, 19.5). Examples include faculty who coordinate and/or participate in advocacy and legislative days where students can learn by observing and participating.⁵

Programs that have achieved success in preparing faculty members to be citizen leaders and pharmacy profession advocates have a supportive institutional culture, faculty and alumni role models, administrative and/or financial support and a co-curricular thread of activities.⁶ Investing in faculty professional development and leadership development has intrinsic and extrinsic, as well as short- and long-term, rewards for all involved. Student pharmacists directly benefit from the role modeling and the opportunities provided for participation and being mentored. The institution benefits from the visibility it brings. For the faculty themselves, it is the fulfillment of their mentorship roles and ability to give back to the profession; with returns of professional recognition, possible awards, and collaborations.

In examining literature and input from faculty and dean colleagues in this area, it appears that there is variability in the level of support for leadership and professional development, more evident in the outcome end of recognition rather than in support for the activities themselves. A survey of deans at 80 schools of pharmacy revealed that teaching excellence was recognized and rewarded at most US colleges and schools of pharmacy; however, research/scholarship and service were formally recognized less frequently.⁷ Formal recognition of service activities may be important at the very least to encourage student pharmacists; and at the other end it may be a contributory factor to faculty retention. Institutional service awards are an example of such recognition. Over a 5-year period, Pharmacy Practice faculty exhibited a higher turnover compared with Basic Science faculty.⁸ Pharmacy faculty members’ decisions to remain at or leave an institution are dependent upon the development of a sense of commitment toward the institution. Commitment is facilitated by support from the institution and department chair, in addition to a sense of satisfaction with the teaching environment.^9,10

The structure of programs with successful retention often includes an orientation program to provide an overview of responsibilities and abilities, a mentoring program to provide one‐on‐one guidance from a mentor, and a sustained faculty development program to provide targeted development based on individual and career needs. Professional abilities (eg, leadership, career planning, balancing responsibilities) are an important component of development workshops in addition to teaching, scholarship and research, and practice site abilities.¹¹

Role in Promotion and Tenure

Acknowledgment of engagement within the college, institution and profession should also include recognition within the promotion process for faculty. However, an analysis of data from 197 faculty members at pharmacy schools revealed that evaluation criteria rely more on scholarship and teaching rather than professional development.¹²

Leadership Development

The traditional view of leadership within academia is evident from the value accorded innovation in scholarship, especially in the basic sciences; this view has expanded to include innovation in teaching methodologies and outcomes through recognition of Scholarship of Teaching & Learning via awards. Development of leadership outside of scholarship appears to be more organic based on the immediate need to fill open administrative positions rather than an intentional encouragement of participation in leadership development programs or succession planning. The role of leadership skills and/or administrative roles may receive a nod in promotion and tenure decisions; however, the culture within academia of waiting until after promotion to consider leadership opportunities persists. More of these roles occur at the Associate Professor level or later. The Academy has extended leadership definitions to include innovations in practice at clinical sites such as antibiotic stewardship programs.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT AND SERVICE IN THE ACADEMY - CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Leadership development for pharmacy faculty is scarcely mentioned in the literature, with the focus on faculty mentorship and development as teachers, researchers, and in succession planning. Engagement in professional organizations to foster leadership development is mentioned briefly in discussion of student leadership development with faculty role models and those serving in leadership roles within local, state, and national pharmacy organizations.^6,13 Although there is a brief mention of faculty involvement in professional organizations, a clear path to leadership development is lacking. In pharmacy organizations, leadership positions are typically attained through volunteer service beginning at the grass roots level, eg, committees, task forces, etc. Individuals move up in rank based on their contributions and current decision makers seeing leadership potential. Depending on the organization, an individual may serve in appointed and/or elected positions at the local, state, and national levels depending on the organization. Leadership at the national level does not occur overnight, but through distinguished service at lower levels in the organization. This is the “typical” pathway for upward movement in a professional organization; however, there is not a defined pathway as some individuals may attain higher level leadership positions without or with little service at lower levels in the organization.

Current AACP President David Allen formed a Task Force on Leadership Pipeline in 2018 comprised of current and former leaders in the Academy and at-large members who were selected for their expertise in diversity. One of the Task Force’s charges includes identifying the path or multiple paths interested individuals could follow to obtain leadership positions within AACP and how to access and navigate those paths. Task Force members were also asked to provide input on the faculty development needed to be successful in a given path.

Barriers to Service

There is a limited number of leadership positions available to faculty members who aspire to serve in professional associations. A faculty member must develop their teaching while also establishing their research environment and practice site. A faculty member typically will need a few years working at their college or school before seeking service in professional associations. In addition, a faculty member may not know how to start their engagement with a professional association. If there are other faculty involved in professional organizations, these individuals can serve as role models and mentors for junior faculty. In addition, these individuals can support the junior faculty member by recommending them for appointment on committees, councils, and/or task forces. This takes time and may not be the highest priority for a junior faculty member who is striving to get their teaching and research established at their institution.

Another barrier to engagement in AACP is a lack of awareness regarding opportunities to serve. Currently, AACP is modifying the AACP Connect online platform to include volunteer opportunities for academy members. These opportunities include not only elected offices, but also opportunities such as serving as a room monitor at the Annual Meeting and reviewing applications for the New Investigator Award. Participating in these non-positional roles brings visibility to oneself and is beneficial in building the connections that are often necessary for more advanced positions.

After discussion and feedback from CEO deans of private institutions, the perceived value of service may be another barrier to engagement. Faculty question the importance of service, generally, when compared to teaching and scholarship, and particularly regarding promotion and tenure. The role service in a professional organization plays in promotion and tenure decisions may be perceived as particularly low value. For non-tenure track faculty members, professional service may be important; however, this will vary greatly depending on the college and/or school.

Promotion and Tenure Implications

There are significant advantages to providing individuals an opportunity to work with established leaders in their field. For tenure-track faculty, this includes being invited to serve on funding review panels for NIH sections. This gives both insight into the evaluation process for their own grants and opportunities to share thoughts with established researchers who may act as mentors or subsequent reviewers. As faculty members engage more fully as an investigator, they have opportunities to understand the research goals at a deeper level, and as they become more senior there are opportunities to guide the direction of funding decisions. As a clinical faculty member, there are similar advantages to participating in pharmacy and specialty practice organizations. Clinical faculty can meet established thought leaders in the profession and discuss the direction they believe practice will be following. Further service on committees or participation in the leadership functions of the profession allow faculty to influence the topics of meetings and the speaker list of invitees. This may allow for further opportunities to be invited as a speaker to additional meetings and expands the likelihood that the faculty member will be remembered when specialists are being sought to write book chapters, reviews, editorials, and opinion pieces. Each of these circumstances significantly increases the likelihood that senior faculty at outside institutions who are asked to review the faculty member’s dossier for promotion and tenure in the future will be familiar with some aspect of their work.

The Importance of Visibility

Essentially, the progression through the ranks as an academician is the acceptance of increased responsibility and obtaining greater visibility. Moving from an assistant professor to associate professor is generally recognized as meeting specific criteria indicative of good teaching along with a promise of excellence in research, practice and scholarship, as applicable. Often faculty at research intensive schools are protected for much of this early career time from significant service or teaching responsibility. At teaching intensive colleges, the faculty member is expected to demonstrate excellence in the teaching aspect and the expectation of research or scholarly productivity is lessened. Service is often minor unless it is specifically a portion of the job description. Practice may well exceed 50% time as faculty are establishing new practice sites and developing relationships. Visibility is expected to increase significantly as a faculty member is promoted to associate professor in either the research or clinical track. It is then that the faculty member needs to be establishing their regional and national reputation for excellence in their research or practice specialty. The faculty member also is expected to assume more responsibility for leadership in faculty governance and in leading committee or professional work. There is no fixed time in most cases for subsequent promotion to full professor. There is also no single definition as to what must be achieved to be a full professor and it varies considerably among different universities. For research intensive schools, there is often an expectation that the faculty member has obtained national or international recognition as a leader or expert in their field. This is very subjective criteria but typically involves an “understood” agreement as to what this level of visibility means to the college.

Service Leads to Scholarship

Community engagement/service may lead to potential scholarship opportunities for faculty. The 2013-2014 AACP Research and Graduate Affairs Committee (RGAC) was charged with assessing the landscape for community-engaged scholarship (CES), including recognition for participation, as well barriers and training opportunities for faculty.¹⁴ They determined that acceptance of this type of scholarship and service has a bearing on whether there is value for faculty to be involved with this type of service and scholarship. This has significant implications, especially when it comes to promotion and tenure decisions. Unless service and CES is valued, faculty do not have incentives to dedicate time and resources to being involved. The incentive to be involved in CES must be aligned with recognition and rewards by the institution. The RGAC recommended “AACP establish guidelines for college and schools regarding promotion and tenure guidelines in order to codify the recognition and reward of community-based work that benefits communities and advances the institution’s mission.”¹⁴ AACP should establish similar guidelines for service in professional organizations.

Professional Development

Engagement outside of the profession brings increased visibility to the profession. As reviewed by Bloodworth et al.,¹⁴ CES and involvement in communities are effective ways to develop and promote external partnerships. These types of involvement would be a “win-win” for the faculty member, institution, and community partners with mutual benefit for all involved. As mentioned previously, board members, as well as others serving in leadership positions within AACP and other professional organizations, can serve as mentors to junior faculty to support their engagement and professional development. Mentoring of junior faculty by senior faculty in shared committees, sections, or special interest groups (SIGS) is a useful practice in professional development.

STRATEGIES AND SUCCESSES

Success in strategic engagement is achieved when engagement strategies are aligned with the goals, needs, and capabilities of the individual faculty member. Faculty-specific considerations may include time commitments for community-engaged work, the percent effort designated for engagement, research/scholarship, and practice. Success is more likely when strategic engagement aligns with faculty interests and school/departmental needs and priorities. Additionally, individual faculty strengths in strategic engagement activities such as relationship-building, coalition building, and grant-writing may be utilized in aligning community needs with faculty and school/departmental goals. Community-engaged faculty members may strategically align their engagement activities and goals with their plans to achieve promotion and tenure.¹⁵

Colleges and schools of pharmacy may consider introducing faculty to strategic engagement and the value of service through a formal orientation program. Such an orientation program would allow the faculty member to explore how service fits into their plan for promotion and tenure and the percentage of time they have allotted for service. Early conversations focused on community engagement as it relates to faculty members’ personal, professional, research/scholarship, and practice goals would be valuable to faculty members seeking to strategically integrate service and community engagement into their career plans.

Strategic faculty and departmental community engagement efforts are more likely to be sustainable and successful when they are connected to the curriculum and co-curriculum; aligned with departmental, school/college, and institutional mission; consistent with a school/college or departmental strategic plan; and aligned with faculty personal and professional goals and interests. Within the academy, it has been recognized that community engagement includes the application of institutional resources in collaborative partnerships that have been formed to address and solve challenges.¹ Similarly, the 2014 RGAC recognized the importance of partnership in their definition of community-engaged scholarship as “teaching, discovery, integration, application and engagement that involves the faculty member in a mutually beneficial partnership with the community.”¹⁴

Participation in advocacy efforts is another recognized mechanism for strategic engagement. For example, AACP has engaged with many external coalitions, workgroups, and committees related to education, practice, and research for many years. By participating in such collaborations, AACP and its members have had the opportunity to influence many important issues pertaining to higher education and the health professions, while simultaneously increasing the awareness of relevance and contributions of academic pharmacy. The perspective of AACP within these coalitions provides an outlet where academic pharmacy can be heard—something that would be difficult to achieve if AACP worked alone. Faculty at colleges/schools of pharmacy can build on these examples at their respective institutions and have significant impact on higher education and their communities.

Academic pharmacy may find it beneficial to explore outside definitions of community engagement as it seeks to learn from other professions and experts in the field of community engagement. The Carnegie Foundation defines community engagement as the “collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity.”¹⁶ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) describe community engagement as “the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people” while recognizing that “it often involves partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems, change relationships among partners, and serve as catalysts for changing policies, programs, and practices.”¹⁷

Traditional and Non-Traditional

The mission and strategic plan of institutions and departments influence the role that service and engagement play in faculty development, as well as in how faculty contributions and impact are evaluated. The value of service and community engagement may vary based on whether an institution is research intensive versus focused on teaching, institutions that encourage a significant amount of time be focused on practice or where faculty positions are shared with a practice site, public versus private institutions, faith-based institutions, and land grant institutions.

A review of all schools and colleges of pharmacy websites in February 2019, as listed on the AACP website, revealed that out of the 140 schools only six had the word “engagement” in their Mission Statement, while 29 had the word “engagement” in their Strategic Plan. Five of the six schools that had “engagement” in their Mission Statement also had “engagement” in their Strategic Plan. One limitation of this search is that alternative words or phrases that reflect engagement were not counted as “engagement;” the word engagement had to be specifically mentioned.

Some institutions may promote the leadership skills necessary to successfully step into community engagement and may recognize the alignment between successful community engagement and effective leadership. Leadership competencies that guide student pharmacists and pharmacy faculty are useful tools in pursuing community engagement and investing in community partnerships.¹⁸ Of special importance is Competency 2, “Recognize that leadership comes from those with and without titles,” which underlines the importance of recognizing the leadership of community members who may not have formal titles but who have significant influence and impact. Equally critical is Competency 7, “Develop a shared vision for an initiative or project,” which recognizes the need for a partnership that leads to strategic engagement toward a common goal. Competency 11, which recommends that community and university partners “Outline change processes,” working together to accomplish goals together.

AACP is considered a priority organization for affiliation and leadership development by volunteers and staff, and AACP Strategic Priority 7, “People: All,” recognizes the importance that relationships play in strategic engagement at every level. Goal 7.2.2, “Leadership Orientation: Enhance new leadership orientation activities,” stresses the importance of leadership in faculty success. In providing programming, coaching, and role modeling through activities such as ALFP, and supporting mentoring through activities such as the Walmart Scholar Program, AACP invests in leadership development for student pharmacists and faculty alike. Faculty may find participation in workshops that focus on leadership development to be useful in developing their skills in strategic engagement. Faculty may be supported in this programming through grants, administration support, professional development funds, or other institutional support.

It is important for faculty to know how engagement and service are valued and with what criteria and expectations engagement is evaluated (eg, having “points” value; if so, what % and what % range should it be?) in school/college Promotion & Tenure Policies and Procedures, as well as how it is evaluated annually, and if any awards are available for faculty that excel in engagement. Professional service could be recognized by the school or college, university, profession, and community, and could also include mentoring and service to students. Institutional service may be recognized at a clinical or public health practice site or in faculty practice sites in the community, non-profit setting, or faith-based setting.

Faculty Development

Faculty development programs serve as useful tools in introducing faculty to balancing their roles in teaching, research, practice, and service and in providing guidance on strategic engagement. These programs can be formal at the university level (eg, as at UTCOP, Manchester) or academy level (faculty bootcamp, new faculty session, new practitioners’ forum) or more informal. College-wide resources focused on community engagement may be valuable to faculty with specific interests and could include those offered through university offices of public engagement and research centers. Faculty development programming focused on integrating strategic engagement into comprehensive goals, including guidance on the development of teaching philosophies, research statements, and service philosophies would all be useful additions to new faculty orientation or a new faculty guide. Focused communication with clinic sites to develop and communicate expectations for faculty in balancing their goals at both sites, including scope of work, faculty/clinician roles and responsibilities, and service expectations, give new faculty a great chance at success.

Resources Available to AACP Members for Leadership and Professional Development

AACP has one program dedicated to leadership development of faculty. The Academic Leadership Fellows Program (ALFP) supports and contributes to the development of leaders in academic pharmacy and higher education. The program provides an opportunity for Fellows to expand relationships with peers and colleagues in other institutions, as well as within their own college and university.¹⁹ The ALFP curriculum is reviewed annually to ensure content is contemporary and appropriate to the program’s leadership objectives. Graduates of this prestigious program have moved up within their organizations with some graduates serving in CEO Dean positions. Although the focus of this program is on leadership development, the program does not focus on professional service within the academy.

Additionally, AACP’s Interim Meeting has evolved over the past few years into a program that focuses on leadership development. Typically, deans, department chairs, and other college leaders attend this meeting. Because most attendees tend to be more senior (regarding position in their institution), the meeting is an ideal opportunity for emerging leaders to attend and begin cultivating relationships with influential individuals.

The academy needs strong leaders representing all facets of academic pharmacy including representatives from different disciplines (basic science versus clinical faculty), type of faculty (tenured/tenure-track versus non-tenure track), and type of institution (public versus private, tier 1 research versus non-research focused institutions). AACP’s website provides information on the different constituents, eg, Board of Directors, House of Delegates, Councils (Deans, Faculties, Sections), SIG Cabinet, and committees. What is not provided is how a member moves up within AACP, eg, leadership position on a SIG, Section, Council, etc. Although there are many opportunities for service at all levels within AACP, members would benefit from hearing from current and past leaders and their paths to leadership positions within AACP. In addition, AACP could also utilize members who have served in high level leadership positions within other professional associations, eg, ASHP, APhA, ACCP, AAPS, etc. and have them share their experiences as other associations may prove to be a better “service fit” for a faculty member based on their practice/research area.

CONCLUSION

Strategic engagement is critical to the success of colleges and schools of pharmacy in expanding pharmacy and public health practice, meeting programmatic needs, and fulfilling institutional missions. This is a significant issue for the Academy as well as AACP. This report and subsequent recommendations reflect issues and opportunities regarding faculty leadership development and strategic engagement. The recommendations put forth by the committee address the barriers and issues to this type of engagement and offer solutions to enhance faculty leadership development and strategic engagement.

Based on the committee’s work, the following recommendations are provided to AACP for consideration.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Recommendation #1 – AACP should create a pathway or exemplar stories of members who have become leaders within the Academy including institutional and volunteer leadership roles.

2. Recommendation #2 – AACP should provide an organizational chart to outline the reporting structures, as well as the policy development process to help members understand how AACP works and points of entry for involvement.

3. Recommendation #3 – AACP should develop an initiative to “groom” faculty for leadership roles including providing tools/training programs for emerging leaders within the Academy.

4. Recommendation #4 - AACP should consider creating a community for targeted groups of faculty, eg, tenured/tenure-track and non-tenure track to address leadership development and engagement based on member interest.

5. Recommendation #5 - AACP should establish a “service mentors” program to match current and past leaders with members interested in enhancing their involvement in the association.