Institutional Policy
Despite its fundamental importance, the educational mission of most schools of veterinary medicine receives far less recognition and support than the missions of research and discovery. This disparity is evident in promotion and tenure processes. Despite the frequent assertion that education is every college’s core mission, there is a broad consensus that faculty are promoted primarily on the basis of meeting expectations relative to publications and grant funding. This expectation is evident in the promotion packets faculty are expected to produce and the criteria by which those packets are reviewed. Among the outcomes is increasing difficulty in hiring and retaining faculty, including young clinicians and basic scientists who are drawn to academic institutions because of the opportunity to teach. The Regional Teaching Academy (RTA) of the West Region Consortium of Colleges of Veterinary Medicine initiated an inter-institutional collaboration to address the most important obstacles to recognizing and rewarding teaching in its five member colleges. Working from the medical education literature, the RTA developed an Educator’s Promotion Dossier, workshops to train promotion applicants, and an external review process. Initial use has shown that the reviews are efficient and complete. Administrators have expressed strong support for the product, a letter of external review that is returned to a promotion applicant’s home institution. The overall result is an evidence-based, structured process by which teaching-intensive faculty can more fully document their achievements in teaching and educational leadership and a more rigorous external review process by which member colleges can assess quality, impact, and scholarly approach.
https://doi.org/10.3138/jvme.2019-0094
Key words: assessment, administration, leadership, inter-institutional collaboration
Stephen A. Hines, Margaret C. Barr, Erica Suchman, Maria Fahie, Dean A. Hendrickson, Patrick Chappell, Johanna L. Watson, Philip F. Mixter
Stephen A. Hines, DVM, PhD, DACVP, is Professor, Department of Veterinary Microbiology and Pathology, Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine, PO Box 647040, Pullman, WA 99164-7040 USA.
Margaret C. Barr, DVM, PhD, is Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Veterinary Medicine, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA 91766 USA.
Erica Suchman, PhD, is Professor and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar, Department of Microbiology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523-1682 USA.
Maria Fahie, DVM, MS, DACVS, is Professor, Small Animal Surgery, College of Veterinary Medicine, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA 91766 USA.
Dean A. Hendrickson, DVM, MS, is Professor of Surgery, Department of Clinical Sciences, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523 USA.
Patrick Chappell, PhD, is Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Biomedical Sciences, Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331 USA.
Johanna L. Watson, DVM, PhD, DACVIM, is Professor and Associate Dean of Professional Education, Department of Medicine and Epidemiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of California, Davis, CA 95616 USA.
Philip F. Mixter, PhD, is Associate Clinical Professor, School of Molecular Biosciences College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, P.O. Box 647520, Pullman, WA 99164-7520 USA. Email: pmixter@wsu.edu.