faculty development work group - university of virginia

University of Virginia School of Medicine

Faculty Development Work Group

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SOM Redesign Team: Faculty Development Committee 2

Introduction The faculty is the most precious resource of the School of Medicine at the University of Virginia.

Developing the this resource throughout each faculty member’s career is critical in developing an engaged

and vital faculty, which is in turn critical to the School’s core missions of patient care, student education,

and research innovation.

Over a period of 4 meetings, the Faculty Development Work Group met to identify central problems in

faculty development and identify potential short term and long term solutions. The committee was made

up of faculty members from across the academic missions and at various stages of academic development.

Common across the school was the feeling of increasing strain we all feel in “justifying” how time is spent.

Regardless of mission or career stage, the work group felt that the faculty feels strained to “justify their

position” in terms of salary support as the key measure of productivity.

As a group, the recommendations included here represent our best collective suggestion to aid faculty

members from a variety of backgrounds, academic missions, and stages in career development. It should be

recognized that these are a starting point of a discussion in line with developing an Office of Faculty Affairs

with a mission to develop the vitality of the faculty over each member’s career.

Summary Recommendations 1. Development of an Office of Faculty Affairs: The work group felt that Faculty Development has a

limited scope of work and that an Office of Faculty Affairs is needed, which combines leadership

and personnel from Faculty Development, as well as Human Resources to direct faculty

onboarding, development, and Promotion & Tenure.

2. Protected Time for Development: Productive academic time that is protected from other activity

is central to faculty development and satisfaction. This protected time is an investment in the

faculty by the School that cannot be taken away if the faculty’s FRP falls into the red. A

recommendation of 5% protected time as a threshold minimum representing 2.4 weeks a year

(assuming a 48 week academic year). This time should come with expected outcomes for each

faculty member discussed at least annually with the faculty member’s Chair or Division Chief.

3. Identify Stages for Development across Career with Clear Mentorship: The needs of faculty

members change. but do not stop as they progress through their career from junior faculty

through retirement. Each stage is necessary for the vitality of the School of Medicine.

Identifying the needs of each faculty member at each stage and providing clear opportunities for

development at each stage, along with stage appropriate mentorship, is necessary to improve

faculty development.


Recommendation Details

An Office of Faculty Affairs

There is already interest in developing a Faculty Affairs Office to bring together staff from Promotion and Tenure, Benefits, Onboarding, Development, SOM HR, etc. The work group supports this idea as a single source for developing and engaging the faculty. The work group recommends that the maximum benefit from this office will be achieved if:

1. Staff would meet with Departments to assess needs and to tailor programs. 2. The office helps the departments move away from the silo approach and promote cross-

departmental collaboration/networking to meet common needs 3. Update and revamp the website into a more user friendly website

a. Create an online calendar of events/workshops b. Create online tutorials/sessions for convenience c. Have a “latest news” box to inform audiences of recent awards or news about

accomplishments or current events being held. 4. Develop ways to facilitate communication that do not rely on email as faculty members

feel over burdened by the quantity of email. 5. A council of faculty members from all departments to regularly review the office and its

outcomes and advise the Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs

This office should focus on developing the faculty by fostering a sense of belonging. Many faculty

members feel somewhat isolated and are sometimes unaware of fantastic collaborative research, clinical,

and educational opportunities around them. Many also feel disconnected from the University as a whole.

Efforts along these lines would include:

1. Develop a more integrated and dynamic database of faculty and their research. This is already

being developed: http://www.vivoweb.org/about

2. Increased interactions among faculty who may not normally interact by sponsoring social

gatherings or retreats by topic rather than department. For example, a diabetes-themed retreat

could include basic and clinical researchers studying metabolism, genomics, cancer,

cardiovascular disease, diabetes complications, behavioral psychology, engineering and

mathematics.

3. Other social events to promote a free exchange of ideas. For example, invite all faculty involved

with regenerative medicine research to an ice cream social to mingle.

This office would also develop a plan for describing and communicating the leadership stability of the School of Medicine. Faculty members do not have a clear understanding of (1) who is in charge of what or (2) the tangible results that are being achieved. There are clear gaps in this understanding across the academic missions that degrade faculty engagement.

Protected Time for Development

Regardless of track or stage of career, faculty members need time and encouragement to engage in development. There was a clear message from all faculty to move from a model that supports funded effort as the only measure of professional effort. This is an investment in the faculty by the


School or Department that cannot be taken away if the faculty’s FRP falls into the red. The work group recommends consideration of 5% as a threshold minimum representing 2.4 weeks a year (assuming a 48 week academic year). This time should come with expected outcomes for each faculty member discussed at least annually with the faculty members Chair or Division Chief. EXAMPLE OF TIME ALLOCATION IN WEEKS Time Clinical

Faculty Clinical

Educator1

Clinical Investigator

Academic Investigator

Faculty Development 2 2 2 2 Education 2 10

1 2 2

Research 0 01

35 44 Administrative 2 12

1 0 2

Patient Care 42 241

9 0 Vacation 4 4 4

Totals 52 52 52 52

There is a growing consensus that faculty members are more satisfied and engaged in their jobs if ~20% of time could be devoted to activities that are most important to the faculty member. This may suggest that the time set aside above may not be enough to truly develop and sustain a faculty member. For basic science (Ph.D.) researchers, this protected time could be used in a number of ways to enhance faculty research and well-being including:

(a) Exploring high risk, high reward research ideas—ground-breaking research comes from exploring crazy ideas that make no sense, but nonetheless are viable and cutting-edge. The poor funding climate has caused many investigators to pull back from high risk research because they do not have the time or resources to devote to new risky projects. (b) Working with collaborators—team science can accomplish a great deal, but developing collaborations takes time, energy, and resources to become fruitful. UVA once had a very collaborative environment, but funding stresses and faculty departures have eroded this environment to where ‘collaborative’ has been replaced with ‘collegial’. (c) Increasing productivity—having one day a week to work on manuscripts, design new curriculum, or edit a new book leads to enhanced reputations for the faculty member at the school. Conversely, continuously writing grants to try to support 100% of salary, research staff, and lab activities reduces productivity, which in turn, reduces the likelihood of future grant funding due to low productivity.

(d) Reducing Stress— the continuous scrambling for funding takes a toll psychologically. Researchers we have contacted at UVA feel as if they can reasonably maintain ~75% of their salary through various external funding mechanisms, but getting to that 100% level is much more difficult.

For clinical faculty (M.D. and Ph.D.) this protection creates time to develop educational programs, pursue academic interests that may lead to grant funding, improve clinical quality throughout the

1 This track is highly variable and this represents one example.


health system, and perform various administrative roles necessary to run clinical and educational operations. Unique to the clinical faculty is the development of clinical programs -- for surgeons this is access to operating rooms, for non-surgeons this is time to develop unique clinical programs that differentiate UVA from our competitors. For both groups, this investment also facilitates faculty engagement in the School of Medicine, though improved teaching, University Citizenship (participation in committee and other work), scholarship, and patient care through QPI projects.

Development across Faculty Career Stages

It is clear that faculty development begins with hiring the right people, developing them as junior faculty, retaining them as mid-career faculty, engaging their passion and excitement as senior faculty, and keeping them involved in the School after retirement. Using this frame work, the ideal faculty development would focus by track on each of these stages and develop tools and training for each stage by track. Document what needs to be collected and reviewed each year to help junior faculty progress via faculty reviews, via Department P&T Committee, teaching portfolios, etc. Discussion occurred about creating a faculty profile (similar to New Innovations for residents); however, Oracle collects some data but not P&T, performance reviews, recommended classes, etc. Staff noted that it is very hard to help faculty find key data, including salary information and that a secure password-protected snapshot/profile page would be helpful and time efficient. 1) Developing Junior Faculty: Understanding the academic track of faculty members early on is

critical in helping them move through the P& T process. While hard to negotiate, protecting young faculty for specific development courses has potential downstream benefits. Developing the specific needs is likely specific to the academic track. Recommendations include:

a) Development of a Junior Faculty Leadership in Academic Matters program that teaches basic and effective two-way communication skills, how to manage programs/employees, and follow through on tasks and commitments in meeting timelines.

b) Consider developing multiple mentors for junior faculty – a new faculty member may need different mentors for research, clinical work, and work-life balance.

2) Keep/Retain Mid-career Faculty: There is a sense that UVA functions as the farm team for the majors and that as junior faculty transition to mid-career they move on to the majors. This may result from unfulfilled promises, lack of resources, or time constraints. Recommendations for improving retention of this group is

a) Focus on promotion, academic time (teaching, travel nationally/internationally with

Department paying, etc.)

b) A mentor or office to help understand research/grants/study section and study design

mentoring/help with publications/help to navigate overall process/seed funding (e.g.,

$50,000) to help get project(s) off the ground.

3) Endear Passion and Excitement of Senior Faculty: The senior faculty need to be developed to teach what they know.


a) Similar to the Junior Faculty Leadership in Academic Matters - incorporate courses that focus on Division chief responsibilities, higher level budgeting, mentoring, effective communication, networking, supervision/conflict resolution, etc.

b) Improve national and international recognition of the faculty through nominating Senior and Mid-career faculty to national organizations for awards and membership.

c) Recognize efforts of senior faculty members through digital displays recognizing publications, seminars, and advancements developed by the faculty.

4) Keep Retired Faculty Involved: The Scholl of Medicine should recognize the contributions of faculty who retire from academics while at UVa by helping the faculty understand the HR requirements and Emeritus requirements as well as the consideration for “buyout”. Keeping them engaged should follow by making it easier to give back clinically, educationally, and through philanthropy. These efforts should be incentivized.

Funding

One unique mechanism to partially defray costs uses targeted philanthropic funds to create partially endowed chairs for basic science faculty. For example, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has an “Endowed Scholar” program that provides endowments of $100,000 (or more) (Appendix A) of which the interest goes directly to the scholar to pay for salary, supplies, equipment, or essentially anything else that would enhance research activities. This amounts to perhaps $5,000 to $10,000 per year for the scholar (depending on interest rate). While this is not nearly as valuable as an Endowed Chair, advantages of such a program include: 1) providing a meaningful way of honoring meritorious faculty 2) providing faculty with funding that does not include limitations for its use 3) providing philanthropists a way to fund scholars without an enormous endowment. Other schools also use more traditional mechanisms to at least partially support research faculty. UAB supports basic science faculty within clinical departments up to 25% when needed, although this is a drain on departmental budgets so self-support is preferred. University of Colorado at Denver provides modest help to researchers: 5-10% for clinical and 30% to basic science departments stemming from hospital revenue. While small, this is impressive for a state school with less state support than UVA (see Appendix B).

Mentoring

Many junior faculty members have expressed frustration about lack of guidance from more senior and experienced faculty. Many feel that they have made avoidable mistakes in the early steps of their career that cost them grant funding or opportunities for promotion. Although most, if not all, departments have some kind of mentoring program, these programs are not uniform and appear to be inadequate in some cases. Options of improved mentoring:

1. Mandatory meetings with mentors. Whether annually, quarterly, or monthly, mentors should

be required to frequently meet with junior faculty to discuss any concerns and to review

research accomplishments and plans.


2. Multiple mentors. Each junior faculty member could benefit from multiple viewpoints by

having 3 or 4 mentors. Mentor selection: based on the assumption that securing external

funding and publishing in peer-reviewed journals are the most important factors for P&T,

mentors should be selected accordingly: mentors should read grant proposals, have knowledge

of the targeted NIH study section, discuss timing for publications etc. Balancing above

mentioned goals with teaching load and service to the University are also matters to be

discussed at the mentor meetings.

3. Rigorous 3rd

year review. At the University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University, there is

specific emphasis on reviewing faculty performance at the end of the 3rd

year. This process

entails a detailed examination of the faculty member’s performance to date much in the way

that the Promotion and Tenure Committee would evaluate faculty. This process provides the

junior faculty member sufficient time to correct any deficiencies before going up for promotion

or tenure. See Appendix C and D for additional details.

NOTE that these mentoring activities would require significant investment of time of senior

faculty, which would need to be appropriately credited toward their service to UVA.

Conclusion – Increasing Faculty Vitality The committee felt there was a clear need to create an Office of Faculty Affairs that could: (1) help faculty

members develop across their career, (2) increase faculty engagement and retention by connecting with

them and with each other, (3) break Departmental Silos.

For Junior faculty it is clear that reducing clinical time expectations is necessary for sustained growth of the

faculty, for mid-level there is a need to retain and sustain their development, for senior faculty transitioning

and passing on leadership skills to those below is a key goal. At all levels, the time of those engaged in

faculty developed needs to be tracked, rewarded, and balanced against other time commitments.

The process needs to continually improve by nimbly responding to the feedback of the faculty and by

engaging in a deeper academic understanding of faculty development.


Appendix A: From an offer letter from University of Alabama at Birmingham:

“The Division will establish a $100,000 endowment fund for you as an Endowed Scholar. The investment

return from this fund can be used by you for support of your salary or for support of your research and academic

efforts, as you see fit.”


Appendix B: State Funding in Colorado vs. Virginia.

• Colorado has reduced its support for higher education by nearly 69.4 percent, from $10.52 in fiscal 1980 (and a

peak of $13.85 in fiscal 1971) to $3.22 by fiscal 2011. At this rate of decline Colorado appropriations will reach zero

in 2022, 11 years from now. Projections using more recent data find that Colorado could hit zero as soon as 2019.

• Virginia reduced higher education funding by 53.6 percent from $10.47 in 1980 (and $11.37 in FY1979) to $4.86

in 2011. At this rate, state funding will reach zero in 2038. Another more recent projection reaches zero in 2032.

These projections were taken from the American Counsel on Education http://www.acenet.edu/the-

presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/state-funding-a-race-to-the-bottom.aspx

http://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/state-funding-a-race-to-the-bottom.aspx

http://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/state-funding-a-race-to-the-bottom.aspx


Appendix C: Details of the mentoring programs at Vanderbilt University.

An important part of the faculty development process is the review of both tenure-track and research track

faculty members with primary appointments in MPB annually and every two years, respectively. This

assessment of the career progression of Assistant and Associate Professors provides oral and written advice

about short- and long-term goals. This internal MPB review process precedes formal consideration for

promotion by the School of Medicine (SOM) Promotions and Tenure Committee and is intended to ensure

that faculty will be nominated for promotion at the appropriate time. The SOM procedures are

summarized online: http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/medschool/facaffairs/fac_promo.html. All faculty

members are advised to familiarize themselves with the SOM policies and procedures.

Reviews are conducted by an MPB Promotion and Tenure Committee, which is composed of more highly

ranked tenured faculty members with primary appointments in MPB: thus, Associate Professors and full

Professors review Assistant Professors, whereas full Professors review Associate Professors.

Statement of departmental philosophy regarding promotions and tenure.

Vanderbilt and the Department of Molecular Physiology seek to promote high impact research by all faculty

members. While it is important at Vanderbilt to obtain funding to maintain a research program, and to

regularly publish the results from that program, funding and regular publications alone should not be

considered adequate for promotion and/or tenure. The overall impact of a research program will be an

additional explicit consideration of the Promotions and Tenure Committee at each annual review and in

making decisions about promotions/tenure. To meet the criteria of impact, a research program should be

nationally recognized, as indicated in the VUMC policy statement requiring “excellence in research,

scholarship, or creative expression in one's discipline of sufficiently high quality to gain favorable

recognition within one's discipline at the national level.” The research evaluations will continue to be

balanced by contributions in teaching, service, and other activities of central importance to the

department’s mission.

Typical Timeline

July 31: Chair requests current CVs from Assistant and Associate Professors tagged (in the previous year’s

review) as being potentially ready for promotion in the coming cycle. The chair may consult other more

senior faculty members in assessing whether recent progress documented on CVs approaches the goals

defined in letters summarizing the prior annual review. If it seems likely that promotion will be discussed

or recommended in the coming review cycle, the Chair ensures that the potential candidate is scheduled for

a research seminar in the fall semester if they have not already presented in MPB during the current

calendar year. The Chair notifies more senior faculty members of seminars by candidates.

Candidates being explicitly considered for promotion must also provide supplementary supporting

information. This should include: 1. A listing of the five most significant publications that includes a

summary of how significance was judged (e.g., journal impact factor, number of citations, discussion in

“News and Views” type articles). 2. A description of contributions to all collaborative research grants and

papers. 3. A detailed annotated listing of teaching accomplishments. These documents should be in a

format consistent with current SOM guidelines: details and suggested templates are available at:

https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/details-appointments-and-promotions - supportdocs.

Candidates should feel free to consult with senior faculty mentors for advice in the preparation of this

material. However, it should be understood that provision of this information is not a guarantee that the

senior faculty will approve moving the promotion forward to the SOM in the current cycle.

Candidates for promotion also must provide a list of potential external reviewers (>5) that may be

approached to provide letters of recommendation to help in the evaluation, and may elect to request the

exclusion of a limited number of individuals from the review process (e.g., competitors). The listing should

http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/medschool/facaffairs/fac_promo.html

https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/faculty/details-appointments-and-promotions#supportdocs


disclose relationships with the suggested reviewers (e.g., collaborator, mentor, former graduate school or

postdoc colleague). The Chair will collect at least six letters; three from people suggested by the candidate

and three from other external reviewers identified by the Chair and senior faculty.

September 30: All faculty members provide the chair with a complete CV that summarizes achievements

over the last 12 months. In addition, faculty members are encouraged to provide additional supplementary

information about their activities that might not be included on a typical CV, such as planned activities for

the coming year (e.g., paper and grant submissions). However, faculty members are encouraged to provide

additional information about any professional activities that they feel might be useful during the review

process.

Following promotion to full Professor, faculty members will continue to submit CVs and an Annual

Accomplishments report to the Chair's office. This will inform the Chairman and Dean of their ongoing

academic activities to aid with long-term departmental planning in the areas of student and faculty

recruiting, public relations, development, and programmatic funding.

October 31: Assistant and Associate Professors are assigned to two members of the appropriate MPB

Promotion and Tenure Review Committee (see above) for individual meetings to review and discuss the CV

and other career related matters. Reviewers should not be members of the faculty mentoring committee

unless other faculty members have insufficient expertise in the candidates’ research area. The reviewers

should evaluate the CV in the context of the prior year’s annual review: the Chair’s office will make the prior

year’s summary letter available to individual reviewers. Reviewers should place an emphasis on assessing

the potential/likely impact of the goals of the overall research program, and the significance of progress

toward these goals since the last review. In addition, reviewers should seek to identify current frustrations

or other problems. The reviewers prepare a detailed written report using the attached template and submit

to the Chair’s office by November 30.

All tenure-track Assistant Professors will undergo a more detailed scientific review during their third year

in rank. This will involve giving a chalk-talk or departmental seminar, and ensuing in-depth discussion of

the departmental P&T committee.

December: Meetings of the appropriate MPB Promotion and Tenure Review Committee (see above).

Committee members will be able to review CVs, letters of recommendation and other supporting materials

for promotion candidates in the MPB office during the week preceding the meeting. At the meeting,

reviewers will explicitly discuss the potential impact of each research program.

December-January: Assistant and Associate Professors meet individually with the Chair to discuss the

consensus from the Promotion and Tenure Committee meetings. The Chair explicitly defines areas of

success over the past year, as well as areas of weakness relative to a normal career trajectory. In addition,

the Chair should explicitly define focus areas for the coming year to help guide an appropriate career

trajectory toward ultimate promotion through the ranks. The Chair will prepare a written summary of the

meeting, which should be submitted to the faculty member for signature approval to ensure that they fully

understand the advice. This letter becomes part of the official personnel file of the individual faculty

member and should be consulted in future years to aid in the annual review process.

Attachments:

Annual Review Report Template


Faculty Review 2012 (Vanderbilt University)

Faculty Member Name:

Rank:

Date of Appointment:

Reviewer Name:

Review Date:

Summary of Recent Research Findings:

Overall Research Program Impact

Reviewers should explicitly discuss recent research findings of the faculty member over the last 12 months,

the proposed research, as well as the likely overall impact of the faculty member’s research program/goals.

Teaching:

Service:

Summary:


MP&B Mentoring Report (Vanderbilt University)

Faculty Member:

Mentors:

Review Date:

Laboratory status:

a) Research (Six-month plan, recent accomplishments, submissions/publications):

Six-month plan:

Recent accomplishments:

Papers

Posters

b) Personnel (research assistant(s)/student(s)/post-doc(s):

c) Budgeting (spending rate of start-up funds and grants):

d) Grants

Funded

Future Grant submissions

Teaching:

Service:

Summary:


Appendix D: Third Year Review at University of Michigan

Faculty Affairs has been conducting third year reviews of the Instructional Track faculty since 2001 and

we extended the third year reviews to the Research and

Clinical Tracks faculty in 2004. Third year reviews are usually provided by the Assistant Deans.

1) The intent of the third year reviews is to:

a. Meet each faculty member at this career milepost and discuss concerns.

b. Teach the promotional processes and to explain such things as 5 key pieces of work, the arm’s length

external letters, etc.

c. Examine and discuss the academic documentation (CV, educator’s portfolio, talking points, and

bibliographic notes).

d. Communicate the results to the chair and candidate.

2) The Office of Faculty Affairs believes and has evidence that third year reviews from the Dean’s Office

help the well-being of our faculty. Of course we hope that each department will have their own careful

academic yearly review and especially at the third year for each faculty member.


Members of Work Group Mark Bowman Donna Broskek (Co-Chair) David Drake Kyle B, Enfield (Co-Chair) Brent French Jennifer Harvey Carol Manning Craig Nunemaker Richard Pearson Jennifer Penberthy Tina Pendleton-Fuller JoAnn Pinkerton Noah Schenkman Jung-Bum Shin Irene Tostanoski

faculty development work group - university of virginia

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