Pharmacy faculty and administrator attitudes toward faculty development programs in colleges and schools of pharmacy

This study investigated the attitudes of pharmacy faculty and administrators towards faculty development programs and selected faculty development initiatives. A random sample of 600 faculty and 400 administrators were surveyed from the population of full-time faculty and administrators in schools of pharmacy within the United States. An overall response rate of 46.4% (n = 450) was realized for a calculated margin of error of 4.7%. Deans and administrators reported that their formal education more effectively prepared them for their academic responsibilities related to the content of what they teach more so than did faculty. Mentoring was enjoyed significantly more by administrators and deans than by faculty during their formal education. Few faculty or administrators have completed formal faculty development programs though a larger number of respondents have completed informal development programs. Clinical faculty reported a greater desire for pursuing formal faculty development than non-clinical faculty. Respondents indicated their top three motivating factors for pursing formal or informal faculty development programming were to improve their (a) teaching, (b) research skills, and (c) the quality of their work. Faculty were more willing to pursue informal faculty development in an effort to be promoted and were more willing to pursue formal faculty development in an effort to earn better pay as compared to administrators and deans. Faculty views of institutional support for informal and formal programming were not overly positive. The majority of faculty respondents were not overwhelmingly positive toward the level of mentoring provided in their first academic position. Technology-related topics received the highest degree of interest with existing faculty whereas topics related to faculty issues (i.e., grant procurement, manuscript writing) were identified as being most needed during faculty members' first academic appointment. The preferred methods for faculty development instruction were live seminars followed by computer-assisted instruction. Faculty, administrators, and deans in academic pharmacy are interested in furthering their knowledge and skills in order to become better teachers and researchers. However more attention within pharmacy education and the professional pharmacy associations needs to be devoted to the critical areas of faculty and administrator development and with whom the responsibility lies.