Enhancing Academic Pharmacy's Bench Strength

Abstract

Change is a constant in most every aspect of society today, and academia is not immune to this. Nor is the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP). In fact, in so many ways, AACP is a microcosm of its members. New demands and expectations require new capabilities, programs, and services. Not surprisingly, a revised accreditation standard represents a major stimulus for AACP to examine how our internal capabilities match the needs of AACP members, both institutionally and individually. Three key areas merit attention given their increased emphasis in Standards 2007. Those are faculty enrichment programs, experiential education, and assessment activities. AACP has taken steps to build bench strength in each area with new staffing and programs. Because of the significance and timeliness, they merit explicit description and communication with members via this Viewpoint. After 16 years of dedicated service in academic affairs at AACP, Susan Meyer sought a career change to rejoin her colleagues in academia. As Associate Dean for Education at the University of Pittsburgh, Susan claims she will now have the chance to see how many of the programs she built work in “the real world”! Change is our only constant. AACP had determined in advance of Susan's decision to leave the staff that the needs of members warranted adding staff in academic affairs. Our search yielded a strong response and, as luck would have it, 2 very talented candidates with complimentary knowledge and experience rose to the surface. George MacKinnon joined the staff as Vice President of Academic Affairs on May 15, 2006. Cecilia Plaza joins effective July 1, as Director of Academic Affairs and Assessment. Together with key staff members Ken Miller, Jennifer Patton, and Libby Ross, these dedicated individuals comprise the core academic team at AACP. The recruitment, retention and, in George's words, enrichment of our faculty resource in pharmacy is “job #1” for AACP. This will require more aggressive outreach about academic careers to professional and graduate students, residents, practitioners, and scientists, including those not familiar with academic pharmacy. It argues for more purposeful programming for department chairs and other future academic leaders, as well as attention to the growing numbers of new faculty members within the academic community at both new and expanding programs. Retention also requires that the academy grapple with questions about expectations for faculty members as content experts, excellent teachers, and strong researchers. AACP has the beginnings of program offerings touching on each of these, but they must grow and become stronger to keep pace with the needs of members. Expect to hear more about the Curricular Resource Center, Education Scholar, and clinical scientist training in the near future. The Academic Practice Partnership Initiative is now over a year old and has yielded the seeds for some very positive change in experiential education. Already we hear from our practice partners (eg, chain corporations) that they have used resources compiled and accessible in the APPI “library” of preceptor materials to better equip their pharmacists to serve as our preceptors. A beta test of criteria to define and celebrate exemplary learning sites is nearing completion. We have reached out through the JCPP to all our national practice association partners to stimulate their programming and support for quality experiential education as well. Arlene Flynn continues her work leading this effort and will be enabled with the hands-on experience George MacKinnon brings from his service as both a department chair and director of experiential education. Assessment is an area all colleges and schools have been seriously working to advance for many years. The ability to evaluate students, faculty members, curriculum, and programs is essential to our individual and collective success. That said, our true experts in the assessment arena are still small in number and often “home grown.” AACP remains committed to work with faculty members as content experts in the development and measurement of assessment programs that will assist all members, while reaching out to other disciplines in a collaborative manner. Adding Cecilia Plaza to the AACP staff represents a major leap forward in our ability and capacity to assist schools with their assessment efforts. As a non-traditional pharmacy administration graduate student, Cecilia took substantial coursework in educational theory and research methods. Her dissertation modeled the use of assessment data for curricular evaluation and reform. She will join forces with Jennifer Patton, the Assessment Learning Community, and the Institutional Research Advisory Committee to maximize the usefulness of both current and future sources of data for use in assessment activities that will benefit each member school. Matching our programs and staff resources to the most compelling needs of our members is the simple success equation AACP has used for over 105 years. In a constantly changing world, it is reassuring to know that at least one thing never changes.