J Dent Educ. 72(4): 438-447 2008
© 2008 American Dental Education Association
From the Students' Corner |
The Academic Dental Careers Fellowship Program: A Pilot Program to Introduce Dental Students to Academia
James M. Rogér, Sc.B.
Key words: student research, faculty development, faculty recruitment, dental education, dental faculty
Submitted for publication 09/19/07;
accepted 01/11/08
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Abstract
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The Academic Dental Careers Fellowship Program (ADCFP) was established in 2006 by the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) and the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) with the financial support of the ADA Foundation to encourage dental students to consider careers in dental education and to provide participating fellows with insights into academic life. The ADA Foundation provided funding during the 2006–07 academic year for eleven dental student fellows, who were paired with faculty mentors at their respective schools. Fellows and mentors attended a two-day retreat in the summer of 2006, and over the course of the subsequent year in dental school, the fellows with guidance from their mentors participated in preclinical laboratory, classroom, small-group, and clinical teaching experiences; designed and implemented a research project; developed a philosophy of education; completed career reflection essays; assembled a portfolio to represent their ADCFP activities and projects; conducted a series of interviews with faculty designed to expose students to roles, issues, and career paths in academic dentistry; and presented a synopsis of their experiences at the ADEA Annual Session in New Orleans in March 2007. The fellows and mentors completed midyear and end-of-year evaluations of the ADCFP in which feedback and recommendations were collected by telephone interviews and questionnaires. Fellows reported positive experiences and an increased interest in and understanding of academic careers. Mentors also evaluated the ADCFP positively and reported enhancements in their mentoring skills. This article describes the goals and format of the ADCFP, summarizes program evaluation data elicited from the fellows and mentors, and proposes recommendations for future fellowship classes.
The Academic Dental Careers Fellowship Program (ADCFP) was created to directly confront the problem of declining interest in academic dentistry as a viable career option for graduating dental students. Attracting new faculty members to dental education is a continuing challenge for the profession. Several recent reports, including the 2000 Oral Health in America: A Report of the Surgeon General, have detailed the shortage of dental faculty and projected that the future need for academic dentists will likely not be met in the short term.1–3 Among the obstacles suggested to explain the declining interest in pursuing dental faculty positions is the limited knowledge among students about academic career opportunities and the lack of a formal process to develop and recruit students to entry-level faculty positions.4 The ADCFP was designed to provide experiences and an understanding of academic dental careers that are not generally available to predoctoral dental students in an effort to combat the growing dental faculty shortage.2
Students were first exposed to the ADCFP at the joint American Dental Education Association (ADEA) and American Association for Dental Research (AADR) Annual Session in Orlando, FL, in March 2006. This program was supported by a pilot grant from the American Dental Association Foundation (ADAF) and was officially launched at the Annual Session by the director of the program, Dr. W. David Brunson. Over sixty students attended this launch meeting. The program provided $4,000 per fellow to cover travel costs to a summer orientation session, expenses throughout the fellowship, and travel to the 2007 ADEA Annual Session in New Orleans.
Detailed information and applications were made available on the ADEA website5 and were advertised to student organizations such as the ADEA Council of Students, the National Student Research Group of the AADR, and the American Student Dental Association. Final applications were submitted in April 2006, and fellows were announced in June 2006 (Table 1
). Following the selection, the fellows were notified and were awarded stipends. All fellows and mentors were expected to attend a two-day retreat in July.
The summer kick-off retreat was designed to introduce the fellows and mentors to all aspects of the program. A summary agenda is presented in Table 2. The program was presented by the director, Dr. Brunson, along with special topic presentations by Prof. William Hendricson and Dr. Karl Haden from the Academy for Academic Leadership.6 Throughout the two-day conference, fellows and mentors participated in workshops designed to introduce aspects of an academic career and the individual program components. A significant focus of the retreat was to establish a foundational fellow-mentor relationship by using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a framework for discussion. Fellows also practiced, through roleplay and facilitated discussion, the different requirements of the program. Anecdotally, all fellows and mentors agreed that the program was introduced effectively and that the summer retreat had prepared them for a successful fellowship year.
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ADCFP Fellowship Components
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With the guidance of their mentors and the endorsement of their institutions, students completed the following fellowship components:
- Teach in a preclinical laboratory, classroom, small-group (seminar/conference), and in the clinical setting. This broad requirement exposed the fellow to all possible teaching experiences in academic dentistry. With the guidance of his or her mentor and other faculty members, the fellow had the opportunity to both present in the didactic/classroom setting and mentor as a clinical instructor.
- Design and implement a research project of their choosing. To continue to expose the fellow to further aspects of an academic career beyond teaching, fellows, under the direction of the appropriate faculty (selected with guidance from their mentors), conducted a research project. No one type of project was specified, and fellows were encouraged to choose a project and collaborating faculty based on their interests.
- Conduct interviews of faculty members at various stages of their careers. To explore the many different paths to an academic dental career, fellows were asked to systematically interview ten to twelve dental faculty members at the following professional ranks: four junior faculty members (part-time or assistant professor), three to four mid-career faculty members (associate professor, tenured or tenure-track), and four senior faculty members (full professor, tenured, or senior administrator).
- Produce an ADCFP "academic portfolio," including a two-part career reflection essay. To introduce the fellow to the promotion and tenure concept, fellows were required to prepare a final academic portfolio in the style required for many faculty performance evaluations. The portfolio served to describe the activities of the ADCFP specifically. The career reflection essay was designed to be a working self-evaluation tool for the fellows: by writing this two-part formal essay (part 1 at the middle of the fellowship year and part 2 at the conclusion), the fellow was forced to judiciously examine his or her progress.
- Present their experiences via a poster at the 2007 ADEA Annual Session in New Orleans and verbally share their experiences and insights acquired during seminars at the same meeting. In order to gain experience in presenting at a national meeting and to evaluate and promote the program as a group, all mentors and fellows were required to attend the 2007 ADEA Annual Session. Fellows presented formal posters and engaged in roundtable discussions with the program director and interested guests about the challenges and successes of the ADCFP. Fellows also had a chance to interact with the 2007–08 ADCFP class.
Throughout the fellowship, the fellow and his or her mentor were expected to meet regularly to discuss progress and challenges. ADEA monitored the progress throughout the year with both midprogram and end-of-program evaluations implemented by online surveys and telephone interviews conducted by the program director. As a long-term outcome measure, ADEA will monitor the career paths of ADCFP fellows to determine the percentage of participating students who obtain faculty positions in dental schools.
The fellows were required to be in their fourth year of dental school (D4), and all students except for one dual-degree student (D.D.S./Ph.D.) complied with this condition. The dual-degree fellow was allowed to participate because he was enrolled in his final year at a dental school.7
Fellows were also required to participate in a research project of their choosing. Projects were conducted under the supervision of their mentors or through cooperation with additional faculty. Research project topics are presented in Table 3.
To expose fellows to the myriad of pathways to becoming a dental faculty member, all fellows conducted between ten and twelve faculty interviews at their respective institutions. Interviewees were selected by the fellows with direction from the mentors. During the summer retreat, fellows received an orientation to the interview process and format and practiced the standard set of questions with their mentors. Fellows were instructed to conduct all interviews in the first semester of the fellowship period (as time allowed) at a pace of two to three interviews per month. So that fellows could gain an appreciation of the different levels of an academic career from part-time faculty through the dean of the school, faculty members of varying rank (junior, midcareer, and senior) were selected. During the discussions and poster presentations at the ADEA Annual Session, fellows reported that they had all completed the interview component and shared many of their anecdotes. Due to the extent of information gathered, the faculty interview data and an analysis of academic reflections are presented in a companion article that appears in this issue of the Journal of Dental Education.8
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Fellows’ and Mentors’ Evaluations of the ADCFP
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The program director contacted fellows and mentors independently at different points to solicit feedback about the program. Fellows and their mentors were asked to provide midyear, work-in-progress feedback during December via an online survey and telephone interviews. Survey and phone call evaluations were also administered at the conclusion of the program at the end of the spring semester in 2007. Data derived from the midyear and end-of-year surveys and phone interviews were stripped of any personal identifying information by the program director and were made available to me for this report. Table 4 presents the questions asked in the online survey, and Table 5 presents the questions asked during the individual phone interviews.
Quantitative Results
Mentors and fellows were surveyed at the midpoint as well as at the conclusion of the program to rate their experiences throughout the ADCFP. All eleven fellows participated in the midprogram survey (100 percent), and ten (83 percent) mentors participated. At the conclusion of the program, eight fellows (73 percent) took the survey, while ten mentors again participated (83 percent). The values of the midprogram and end-of-program surveys are presented in Table 4
. The online survey consisted of a total of fifteen questions (with one additional recruitment question for mentors), which were divided into three sections: Components of the ADCFP (eight questions: #1 through 8); Mentoring and Support (five questions: #9 through 13); and Overall Satisfaction (two questions: #14 and 15).
The first section of the survey requested student fellows and mentors to assess the specific components of the program. At the midprogram evaluation, the fellows rated mentor meetings, faculty interviews, and teaching activities the highest (questions #1, 2, and 3), while mentors rated the anticipation of the Annual Session presentation, mentor meetings, and faculty interviews the highest (questions #6, 1, and 2). Both fellows and mentors provided the lowest ratings for the research project and the career reflection essay (questions #4 and 5). At the conclusion of the program, fellows rated the teaching activities, faculty interviews, and mentor meetings the highest (questions #3, 1, and 2), and mentors rated mentor meetings, teaching activities, and faculty interviews the highest (questions #1, 3, and 2). At the conclusion of the fellowship year, both fellows and mentors provided the lowest ratings for the career reflection essay and the research project (questions #4 and 5).
For the five survey questions related to Mentoring and Support, the fellows provided the most positive ratings for the support from the program director and support from their mentors at both the midprogram evaluation and the conclusion of the program (questions #12 and 9). The mentors rated the overall mentor relationship the highest at midprogram, but then rated their ability to effectively share their insights with their fellows the highest at the program conclusion (question #10). Among the items in the Mentoring and Support section of the survey, both fellows and mentors provided the lowest ratings for the support materials provided to participants in the summer retreat.
When asked about their overall satisfaction, both fellows and mentors rated their overall satisfaction and willingness to recommend the program to their peers positively (questions #14 and 15). Mentors responded to an additional question (question #16) where asked if they would recruit additional students to the program, and the faculty responded enthusiastically that they would encourage other students to participate.
In all but one of the fifteen survey questions, the fellows’ ratings changed in a positive direction between the midprogram evaluation and the program conclusion. Fellows’ ratings in response to the question regarding summer session support materials decreased slightly (question #11). Fellows provided higher ratings at the end of the program for five survey questions including both of the overall satisfaction questions (questions #14 and 15). The most substantial change from the midyear to end-of-year ratings was for the research project (question #4).
Mentor responses were less uniform. Fifty percent of the questions showed a positive or no increase when comparing midyear and end-of-year ratings. Faculty ratings of the career reflection essay and establishment of an effective mentor relationship were slightly lower at the end of the program than at midyear, and mentors’ ratings of their ability to effectively share their insights and their overall academic experience with their fellows were slightly higher at the end of the program than at the midyear assessment.
Open-Ended Responses
Mentors and fellows were also asked to elaborate upon their survey responses in open-ended questions. To evaluate the variety of responses, I examined the responses and identified generic themes addressed by the respondents. These themes were then tabulated and ranked according to frequency at both the mid-program and end-of-program periods to allow for comparison. The number of write-in responses varied depending on the question, but overall, the comments were consistent with the survey responses. The focus and nature of the open-ended comments varied and were often multithemed; because all comments were considered in the tally, percentages represent the total number of times that comments were cited (including multithemed responses). These results are presented in Tables 6 (fellows) and 7 (mentors) and divided into midyear responses and end-of-year responses. Absolute responses and percent responses are reported for each question.
In general, fellows agreed that the mentor-fellow relationship was the most positive aspect of the program, and mentors expressed a positive level of satisfaction in the progress their fellows made. Fellows and mentors also agreed that the time demands placed on the fellow during the program were significant, and three fellows commented that the research program was difficult to complete in the time allotted. Overall, both fellows and mentors expressed both a need for this program to continue and that they would recommend this program to other students or serve as a mentor again.
Phone Interview Responses
Fellows and mentors were interviewed by the program director in brief phone calls to augment the midprogram and end-of-program surveys. All fellows and mentors participated in the midprogram interview, and nine fellows and nine mentors (82 percent, 82 percent, respectively) responded at the conclusion. The phone interview questions (Table 5) were analyzed in the same manner as the open-ended questions. As the phone call summary data were recorded second-hand by the program director (versus the direct quotations from the open-ended survey responses) and because the questions and responses mirrored the open-ended responses so closely, these data are not presented quantitatively.
Generally, fellows cited both the teaching experience and the faculty interviews as the most valuable experiences, and the research component and the career reflection essay were mentioned as the least valuable. Mentors mentioned that the time demands for the fellows were significant, but felt that all the components were valuable. Both fellows and mentors stressed that the program helped the fellows understand and confirm their interest in pursuing an academic position one day in the future. All participants confirmed their survey responses that the program was a very valuable experience.
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Discussion and Recommendations
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"A Wonderfully Unique Experience"
Both fellows and mentors provided very positive assessments when asked about their overall satisfaction with the program. During the phone interviews, one fellow commented that the program "definitely made me more interested; [I now] see the value and the need." During discussions at the ADEA Annual Session in New Orleans and again in the phone interviews, nearly all fellows commented on the relationships they had formed through the mentorship component and unanimously agreed that the "positive fellow-mentor relationship" was the primary strength of the program. It was evident that, in addition to the other positively reviewed individual fellowship components, the overall strength of the program from the fellows’ perspective was the one-on-one interaction with a career mentor, which is consistent with the goals of the ADCFP initiative.
Dental students are used to being exposed to mentors when working with their clinical instructors. A recent survey of students by Henzi et al. ranked "the clinical learning experience" and "opportunity to work with knowledgeable faculty" as the primary strengths, respectively, in the dental school curriculum.9 Perhaps intimate exposure to career academic faculty while undertaking teaching/scholarship activities (similar to exposure to clinical faculty while performing patient care) would deepen students’ understanding of the academic career path. All fellows agreed that this was a unique and enlightening way to experience the final year of dental school and were excited to see these experiences continue for the next fellowship class.
Lessons Learned
Fellows and mentors agreed that no component should be deleted, but did suggest some modifications based on their experiences.
Both fellows and mentors cited the time commitment of the program as more substantial than they had expected. In fact, one fellow calculated this experience as being the time equivalent of an additional clinical specialty rotation for students on top of their already substantial academic requirements. One fellow said, "I would recommend the program to others with the disclaimer that it will be a lot of extra work along with 4th year." In fact, this comment was so omnipresent during the fellowship that the D4 requirement has been lifted for the 2007–08 ADCFP.5
Some fellows also commented that the "research project was difficult in the time allotted." In some cases, students were already participating in longer-term projects, which could explain why this was not a universal comment. The largest increase in fellows’ ratings of fellowship components from midyear to program conclusion was for the research project, indicating that several fellows had more success in the latter half of the program and also suggesting that it may have taken some of the fellow-mentor teams time to get rolling, given the complexities of designing a viable research project. Depending on the school environment and the availability of research opportunities, projects varied from simple surveys to basic science research (Table 3). Based on the experiences in the first year of the ADCFP, the program should allow a review of the literature as an alternative for students who have difficulty identifying a suitable project if they are teamed with mentors who are not research-oriented or are attending a dental school with limited infrastructure to support meaningful student research.
While all fellows were enthusiastic about the advice gleamed from the faculty interview component, one fellow suggested that the interviews "became redundant" and should be reduced in number. A mentor commented that all the different faculty ranks were not available at that individual’s institution and suggested that this component should be more flexible. One possibility could be that the interview component be managed locally under the guidance of the mentor with the absolute number and types of interviewees chosen based on the individual student’s requirements and interests.
One fellow and one mentor questioned the value of the career reflection essay during the program, and as noted previously, the mentor rating of this component declined between the first and second assessments. Perhaps this could be reformulated as a "fellowship reflection essay" or a brief essay discussing the fellow’s perception of academic life at the beginning and conclusion of the program.
"Publish or Perish"
Subsequent fellowship classes should continue to annually report the results of their experience to the dental education community. It is hoped that this program will continue to provide a framework with which to recruit and educate students about careers in academic dentistry. To determine the long-term outcomes of a program like this, it needs to be critically evaluated in peer-reviewed publications. Hence, I recommend that several students take it upon themselves to formally describe their results at the conclusion of their fellowship term. In addition to the scholastic value of these publications, this experience will add yet another aspect of an academic career to the program.
"Steal This Program"
Looking broadly across the survey responses and specific comments, fellows reported very positive experiences. All mentors and fellows indicated at some level that this program should continue. In fact, "Institutional/Curriculum Integration Challenges," which were cited by 45 percent of the fellows as the principal weakness at the midprogram evaluation, were only cited by 14 percent at the conclusion, suggesting that the initial resistance to such a new program was overcome in under ten months. Given the administrative success in this initial pilot year, it seems natural to expect that a new fellow at an already primed school would experience fewer of these initial growing pains. One mentor suggested that the resources provided to the participants be made available on a program-specific website for all institutions.
Since the generous funds provided to the program from ADEA, the AADR, and the ADA Foundation are limited, I also recommend that, in addition to the national program, this model be expanded to the local level with necessary funding support provided by individual dental schools. In this way, fellowship experiences similar in goals and format to the ADCFP could be implemented throughout the nation. To expose as many students as possible to academic dentistry, and given the efforts required to "prime" each institution with this program, perhaps one of the expectations should be that once a dental school has had a mentor and fellow go through the program, that school would be expected to sponsor one or more students in an ADCFP-like program within their own institution in the subsequent year.
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Concluding Remarks
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While this article serves to highlight both the primary strengths and weaknesses of the first year of the ADCFP, virtually all of the assessment data and feedback from the fellows and mentors were positive and constructive and indicated that it was an overwhelming positive experience. By highlighting the lessons learned and challenges from this first year, it is my hope that this program will continue to improve and subsequently be expanded. It is difficult to draw conclusions from the inaugural year of any program, especially one designed to have a long-term positive impact on the number of academic dental faculty members. This summary will serve as a baseline for subsequent fellowship classes and provide a framework for future nationally sponsored programs. It is my hope that the ADCFP will be deemed a success.
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Acknowledgments
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I would like to thank the 2006 ADCFP fellows and mentors as well as their supporting schools: Andrea B. Burke, Harvard School of Dental Medicine (Dr. Catherine Hayes); Carmel Z. Dudley, Columbia University (Dr. Martin Davis); Ryan Edmunds, Virginia Commonwealth University (Dr. Sharon Lanning); Darryl Gilmore, Howard University (Dr. Andrea Jackson); Bradley E. Harrelson, University of Mississippi (Dr. Frank Serio); Jaha Howard, Howard University (Dr. Larry A. Crisafulli); Matthew S. Milliner, University of Kentucky (Dr. Jennifer Brueckner); Marquette University (Drs. Anthony M. Iacopino and Thomas Taft); Alexis Tessler, University of the Pacific (Dr. Nader Nadershahi); Gilda Torossian, University of California, Los Angeles (Dr. Bob Lindemann); and Meggan Wehmeyer, University of Iowa (Dr. Janet Guthmiller). In addition, I would like to thank the ADA Foundation, the American Association for Dental Research, the Academy for Academic Leadership and Karl Haden and William Hendricson, and the American Dental Education Association. Finally, all fellows would like to enthusiastically acknowledge the efforts of ADCFP program director, Dr. W. David Brunson.
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Author Information
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Mr. Rogér is a D.D.S./Ph.D. Student, Marquette University School of Dentistry and University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Direct correspondence and requests for reprints to him at University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Center for Oral Biology, Box 611, 601 Elmwood Ave., Rochester, NY 14642; 215-200-6436; James_Roger{at}urmc.rochester.edu.
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[Abstract]
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Abstract
Adcfp fellowship components
