In a modern context of constrained resources and high demands, faculty exert agency to strategically navigate their careers (Baez 2000a; Neumann et al. 2006). Guided by the O'Meara et al. (2011) ...framework on agency in faculty professional lives, this study used Structural Equation Modeling to investigate which departmental factors (perceptions of tenure and promotion process, work-life climate, transparency, person-department fit, professional development resources, and collegiality) influenced faculty agentic perspective and agentic action. Results showed that faculty perceptions of certain departmental contexts do matter in faculty career agency, such as work-life climate, person-department fit, and professional development resources. These contexts have a particular influence on faculty agentic perspective. Results also showed a large effect of agentic perspective on agentic action. The study has important implications for administrators regarding departmental role in faculty agency and contributes to the growing body of literature on faculty sense of agency in academe.
Background
Despite many initiatives to improve graduate student and faculty diversity in engineering, there has been little or no change in the percentage of people from racially minoritized ...backgrounds in either of these groups.
Purpose/Hypothesis
The purpose of this paper is to counter the scarcity fallacy, in which institutions blame the “shortage” of qualified people from traditionally marginalized backgrounds for their own lack of representation, related to prospective PhD students and prospective faculty from traditionally marginalized groups. This study identifies the BS‐to‐PhD and PhD‐to‐tenure‐track‐faculty institutional pathways of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino engineering doctorate recipients.
Design/Method
Using the US Survey of Earned Doctorates, we tracked the BS‐to‐PhD institutional pathways of 3952 Black/African American and 5732 Hispanic/Latino engineering PhD graduates. We also used the Survey of Doctorate Recipients to track the PhD‐to‐tenure‐track faculty pathways of 104 Black/African American and 211 Hispanic/Latino faculty.
Results
The majority of Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino PhD graduates in this study did not earn their BS degrees from Top 25 institutions, but rather from Not Top 25, non‐US, and minority‐serving institutions. The results also show the relatively small proportion of PhD earners and faculty members who move into highly ranked institutions after earning a bachelor's degree from outside this set of institutions.
Conclusions
The findings of this study have important implications for graduate student and faculty recruitment by illustrating that recruitment from a narrow range of institutions (i.e., Top 25 institutions) is unlikely to result in increased diversity among racially minoritized PhDs and faculty in engineering.
This 2017 Presidential Address for the Association for Academic Surgery was delivered on February 8, 2017. It addresses the difficult topic of gender disparities in surgery. Mixing empirical data ...with personal anecdotes, Dr. Caprice Greenberg provides an insightful overview of this difficult challenge facing the surgical discipline and practical advice on how we can begin to address it.
This overview of the research sector in the Western Balkans is a companion piece to the Western Balkans regional research and development (R and D) strategy for innovation. The strategy aims to ...strengthen the region's research capacity, enhance intraregional cooperation, promote collaboration with business sectors, explore possibilities for financing R and D from European Union (EU) funding schemes and other external sources, and help integrate the region into the European research area (ERA) and innovation union. This overview provides the background and analysis that informed the development of the strategy. The background work includes four studies on the different components of the research sector, a policy questionnaire, and seven country studies reviewing key policies, institutions, and performance of the national research sectors. This overview outlines the performance of the research and innovation sector, and describes the major drivers of this performance. It starts by presenting a framework of the different components of research and innovation in the Western Balkans. This leads into section two discussing the performance of the research sector, which has been improving, but still lags international benchmarks. This reflects a number of challenges facing the sector, including the effects of a substantial brain drain, insufficient funding and a mismatch between research facilities, and economic needs. Section three discusses the technology transfer system and its important role in the performance of the research and innovation sector as a whole. The contribution of technology transfer in the region is limited, as reflected for example, in the limited interaction between the research and enterprise sectors. The enterprise sector is discussed in section four. Section five describes the policy and institutional framework, pointing out a number of areas where this can be strengthened. This includes improving the career path for researchers, providing more funding through competitive processes as opposed to block grants, and continuing to strengthen policy co-ordination. The final section concludes.
In 2013, Sudan joined the Russia Education Aid for Development (READ) trust fund program, the goal of which is to help countries improve their capacity to design, carry out, analyze, and use ...assessments for improved student learning. As part of the READ trust fund program, and in order to gain a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of its existing assessment system, Tajikistan participated in a formal exercise to benchmark its student assessment system under The World Bank's Systems Approach for Better Education Results (SABER) program. SABER is an evidence-based program to help countries systematically examine and strengthen the performance of different aspects of their education systems. SABER-student assessment is a component of the SABER program that focuses specifically on benchmarking student assessment policies and systems. The goal of SABER-student assessment is to promote stronger assessment systems that contribute to improved education quality and learning for all. The importance of assessment is linked to its role in: providing information on levels of student learning and achievement in the system; monitoring trends in education quality over time; supporting educators and students with real-time information to improve teaching and learning; and holding stakeholders accountable for results. The SABER-student assessment framework is built on the available evidence base for what an effective assessment system looks like. The framework provides guidance on how countries can build more effective student assessment systems. The framework is structured around two main dimensions of assessment systems: the types/purposes of assessment activities and the quality of those activities. Assessment systems tend to be comprised of three main types of assessment activities, each of which serves a different purpose and addresses different information needs. These three main types are: classroom assessment, examinations, and large scale, system level assessments. This report focuses specifically on policies in the area of student assessment.
Many factors play a role in academic promotion among orthopaedic surgeons. This study specifically examined the importance of publication productivity metrics, career duration, and sex on academic ...rank in orthopaedic surgery programs in the United States.
Faculty at 142 civilian academic orthopaedic surgery departments in 2014 were identified. Geographic region, department size, and 3 specific faculty characteristics (sex, career duration, and academic position) were recorded. The Hirsch index (h-index), defined as the number (h) of an investigator's publications that have been cited at least h times, was recorded for each surgeon. The m-index was also calculated by dividing the h-index by career duration in years. Thresholds for the h-index and the m-index were identified between junior and senior academic ranks. Multivariate analysis was used to determine whether the 3 physician factors correlated independently with academic rank.
The analysis included 4,663 orthopaedic surgeons at 142 academic institutions (24.7% clinical faculty and 75.3% academic faculty). Among academic faculty, the median h-index was 5, the median career duration was 15 years, and the median m-index was 0.37. Thresholds between junior and senior faculty status were 12 for the h-index and 0.51 for the m-index. Female academic faculty had a lower median h-index (3 compared with 5; p < 0.001) and career duration (10 years compared with 16 years; p < 0.001) than male academic faculty, but had a similar median m-index (0.33 compared with 0.38; p = 0.103). A higher h-index and longer career duration correlated independently with an increased probability of senior academic rank (p < 0.001), but sex did not (p = 0.217).
This analysis demonstrates that a higher h-index and m-index correlate with a higher academic orthopaedic faculty rank. Although female surgeons had a lower median h-index and a shorter median career duration than male surgeons, their m-index was not significantly different, and thus sex was not an independent predictor for senior academic rank. The identified thresholds (h-index of 12 and m-index of 0.51) between junior and senior academic ranks may be considered as factors in promotion considerations.
Faculty are often evaluated on perceptions of their teaching effectiveness, their service activities, and their research productivity. To meet their institutional standards in each area, the faculty ...must properly allocate and manage their time. Administrators and department chairs have the means to facilitate or hinder faculty research productivity through teaching and service assignments. This paper provides administrators and faculty with a framework to evaluate each faculty member's annual workload to ensure that adequate time should be available to meet institutional expectations. This framework illustrates the negative effects that multiple course preparations and heavy teaching loads have on research productivity. Institutional policies should be adjusted to consider these effects on their faculty's research productivity.
Higher education institutions have adopted diversity course requirements while hiring more faculty members off the tenure track. Non-tenure track faculty members’ experiences teaching required ...diversity courses while navigating their precarious employment status has not been sufficiently explored. Addressing this need, the present study examined the experiences of non-tenure track instructors teaching diversity courses as part of general education programs at five colleges and how they understood their relationships to the diversity course requirement and the institution. Instructors perceived themselves as institutional “heavy lifters,” yet emphasized that their precarious status left them disconnected from the diversity requirement and the larger campus.
gutierrez a.p., candela l.l. & carver l. (2012) The structural relationships between organizational commitment, global job satisfaction, developmental experiences, work values, organizational ...support, and person‐organization fit among nursing faculty. Journal of Advanced Nursing68(7), 1601–1614.
Aim. The aim of this correlational study was to examine the relations between organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, work values, person‐organization fit, developmental experiences, and global job satisfaction among nursing faculty.
Background. The global nursing shortage is well documented. At least 57 countries have reported critical shortages. The lack of faculty is finally being recognized as a major issue directly influencing the ability to admit and graduate adequate numbers of nurses. As efforts increase to both recruit and retain faculty, the concept of organizational commitment and what it means to them is important to consider.
Design. A cross‐sectional correlational design was used.
Methods. The present study investigated the underlying structure of various organizational factors using structural equation modelling. Data were collected from a stratified random sample of nurse faculty during the academic year 2006–2007.
Results. The final model demonstrated that perceived organizational support, developmental experiences, person‐organization fit, and global job satisfaction positively predicted nurse faculty’s organizational commitment to the academic organization. Cross‐validation results indicated that the final full SEM is valid and reliable.
Conclusions. Nursing faculty administrators able to use mentoring skills are well equipped to build positive relationships with nursing faculty, which in turn, can lead to increased organizational commitment, productivity, job satisfaction, and perceived organizational support, among others.
Embracing midcareer in the tenure system Eldeirawi, Kamal M.; Hershberger, Patricia E.; Pickler, Rita H. ...
Journal of professional nursing,
January-February 2023, 2023 Jan-Feb, 2023-01-00, 20230101, Volume:
44
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Midcareer faculty are the “keystone” of academia. Faculty in midcareer experience an increase or change in responsibilities and expectations as well as reduced support and mentorship usually extended ...to junior faculty. Nonetheless, midcareer can be an ideal time for re-evaluating and defining one's career path and taking advantage of leadership and service opportunities. Successful navigation of midcareer is essential to ensure nursing faculty remain in the academic setting, contribute to nursing science, and have a satisfying career. In this paper, we present strategies midcareer nurse faculty can consider to maintain balance and advance their careers even during challenging times. These strategies include appraising career goals, maintaining and expanding mentoring relationships, seeking and utilizing opportunities for leadership development, selecting service strategically to advance career goals, preparing for the unexpected, maintaining/expanding scholarly productivity, learning when to say yes or no, embracing lifelong learning, and improving visibility of one's work.
•Midcareer is an ideal time to appraise career goals and expand mentoring.•Midcareer is an opportunity for leadership development and significant service.•Time management and selective collaborations improve productivity in midcareer.•Improved communication and visibility during midcareer may extend influence.•Embracing lifelong learning and expecting the unexpected help maintain productivity.
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