(435) Meeting Faculty and Staff Professional Development Needs through Empowerment, Collaboration, and Innovation

Objective: Encompassing the development of the academic environments of faculty, staff, and preceptors in a college of pharmacy is essential for establishing and refining the skills necessary to enhance the quality of education and research. Such an environment supports members to reach their full potential and maximize their contributions to the college.

Methods: Under the guidance of the faculty, staff, and preceptor development committee, needs assessments are conducted every other year to identify and prioritize the key developmental focus areas that are in alignment with the goals of enhancing teaching skills, promoting student success, supporting institutional and academic strategic objectives, and facilitate career advancement. The programs offered by the committee are a part of the college wide assessment process.

Results: Several significant accomplishments of the committee include: adding staff and preceptors to the development programs to develop a common goal, collaborating with the other functional units such as the office of research, overseeing the faculty peer evaluation process to identify faculty strengths and weaknesses to improve overall teaching skills, facilitating the formalized orientation and coaching programs for new faculty hires to improve awareness of college policies and procedures, implementing a formalized faculty advising process, and reviewing college policies such as promotional guidelines and the annual faculty evaluation report. Examples of development workshops conducted recently are item writing, writing foundation grants, peer coaching, and work-life balance. The committee’s effectiveness has been rated very highly in the college-wide assessments.

Conclusions: Meeting the individual and department level needs of faculty, staff, and preceptors is a systematic and comprehensive well-resourced effort to foster a culture of continual learning and growth that parallels with the academy’s practices and innovations.