Recruitment, development, and retention of dental faculty in a changing environment

The scarcity of full-time clinical faculty members in dental schools across the country is a major crisis confronting dentistry. Dental schools are experiencing critical faculty shortages and are struggling to maintain appropriate faculty to student ratios. The adage of "doing more with less" applies, in many ways, to dental schools and their mission of educating future dentists. Solutions to the problem have included plans to recruit, develop, and mentor faculty members. However, progress has been slow. Dental schools have created incentive programs to help with faculty shortages and develop future educators in dentistry. This requires commitment and resources and will take years before these efforts and their impact can be assessed. Creative solutions need to be developed both nationally and locally to reverse the trend more rapidly.