Stimulating and sustaining scholarly activity at teaching-intensive institutions

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Academic Scholarship
• Faculty Development

Background:

• Scholarly activity is crucial for academic institutions.
• Teaching-intensive institutions face challenges in meeting scholarly requirements.
• A teacher-scholar model offers a framework to enhance academic productivity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe strategies for implementing a teacher-scholar model.
• To stimulate and sustain scholarly activity in teaching-intensive settings.
• To assess the impact of strategic initiatives on scholarly productivity.

Main Methods:

• Programmatic assessment of scholarly productivity metrics over five years.
• Implementation of sixteen strategic initiatives across three colleges of pharmacy.
• Data collection on publications, presentations, abstracts, grants, and funding.

Main Results:

• Observed broad increases in scholarly productivity (1.4- to 10.4-fold).
• Significant growth in grantsmanship and faculty/student contributors.
• Sustained scholarly output with publications increasing 1.6-fold and funding 15.8-fold in the most recent period.

Conclusions:

• A substantive approach to increasing scholarship involves cost-conscious strategies.
• Key elements include linking scholarship to faculty advancement, robust faculty development, institutional support, and student engagement.
• The teacher-scholar model effectively enhances research and academic productivity.