Clinical faculty members in the schools of education in the united states: an overview

Abstract

In the United States of America, the term “clinical faculty” has been used to define diff erent positions academic personnel hold in various fields and job sett ings. Although it possesses diff erent meanings, the main argument is that the clinical faculty position in general, is designated to bring practical knowledge and expertise to the professional schools by filling the gap between theory and practice. Schools of education, as in other professional schools, also off er this type of clinical faculty position to provide practical knowledge to their students who will need it in their future lives as teachers, administrators and practitioners. Th is study aims to discuss the future of clinical faculty in schools of education through analyzing the position, in terms of job specifications, eff ectiveness, job requirements, personnel rights and the issues this category of faculty encounters in a cross comparative way across the fields of education, law and medicine. One of the main recommendations of the paper is that the future of clinical faculty should be secured through creating a clinical – tenure - track faculty positions in schools of education as in other professional schools instead of keeping them under the general appointment and promotion rules and regulations with the other faculty members. In this way, both the clinical faculty members’ problems related to job security, compensation, and promotion and non-clinical faculty members’ concerns related to quality will be resolved.