Academic Tracks

Teacher: a faculty member who directly supervises the care rendered to patients in the clinical setting by the students, typically offering advice and checking appropriateness of care. The defining feature of this track is a contribution to educational activities.

What do I need to know?

As a teacher, you would concentrate on teaching and service, but may also participate in research projects, mainly as a clinician. You may publish, but not as a major expectation for promotion.

The main areas of focus for this track involve:

• Direct involvement in the process of promoting learning
• Support of the infrastructure needed for learning
• Development of products used by others in learning

Competencies:

• Enthusiasm for teaching and supporting students
• Awareness of learning styles & opportunity to use various teaching methods
• Critical thinking & problem-solving skills
• Facilitate discussion, frame broad questions, engage students
• Identify sources of student difficulty with skill acquisition and develop strategies to address appropriately
• Teach in variety of settings: large group, small group, one-on-one, preclinical, clinical, laboratory, distance/continuing education

Clinical/community care faculty member: A faculty member who not only supervises in the clinical setting, but is also actively engaged in clinical studies. This can also entail providing public health interventions and outreach by new scientific discoveries in the related field.

What do I need to know?

Working in clinical and community care, you would participate in teaching, research, and service. You may be expected to publish in peer-reviewed journals, however you would not be expected to secure high-level research support.

The main areas of focus for this track involve:

• Provision of patient care or direct public health interventions
• Development/implementation of clinical or public health programs, interventions, and outreach
• Development/implementation of clinical or public health programs, interventions and outreach used by others

Competencies:

• Critical thinking & problem-solving skills
• Define learning outcomes/objectives appropriate for the setting and stage of student development
• Demonstrate the ability to work as part as an interdisciplinary team for patient care
• Teach in variety of settings: large group, small group, one-on-one, preclinical, clinical, laboratory, distance/continuing education
• Plan and evaluate curriculum
• Assess student performance by defining purpose, choosing appropriate assessments, and facilitating learner’s self-assessment

Researcher: A faculty member who devotes most of his/her time at the college to direct involvement in either benchtop (basic science), clinical research, social science and health services research.

What do I need to know?

As a researcher, you are expected to teach often with an emphasis on graduate students. You would concentrates on development of a research focus and securing grant funding, including salary support. You are also expected to publish results of research in highly ranked journals.

The main research activities for this track are:

• Research leader
• Major contributor
• Collaborative research team member
• Research site investigator

Competencies:

• Formulate a research question and operationalize variables
• Maintain an active and current knowledge in an area of scholarship by accessing and critically reading the literature and identifying seminal articles and leading researchers in the area
• Write a research/training grant proposal
• Conduct and manage research projects
• Collect and manage data
• Publish the results of scholarly activities in peer-reviewed journals