Rethinking Faculty Work: PA Educators Are Faculty Too

Dawn Morton-Rias, EdD, PA-C
Immediate Past President

Although the summer sun continues to shine brightly and temperatures remain seasonable, the cool evening breeze reminds us that summer is ending. This change in season marks the start of the new academic year and for many, an opportunity to begin anew. Even the most jaded educators and reluctant students look toward the new school year as an opportunity to do things a little differently. Faculty members may consider innovative instructional strategies or they may choose to weave the highlights of their summer research, foreign travel, or other professional experiences into their courses.

However, unlike faculty in the liberal arts, most PA educators spend much of each summer busy in classrooms, laboratories, and clinical sites, or supervising student research. The thought of a summer spent in scholarly pursuit is usually just that — a thought. Although PA educators continue to reinvent themselves and incorporate new techniques for each new school year, they must often make these transformations while meeting full-time teaching and administrative demands throughout the summer. Unlike many of their academic colleagues, PA educators must adjust to the time commitment of the standard 11- to 12-month academic calendar and continue to be productive members of the academic community. Perhaps the time demanded by the PA educational process and the impact this has on faculty should be reconsidered.

Gappa, Austin, and Trice in their 2007 book, Rethinking Faculty Work: Higher Education’s Strategic Imperative, examine the changing roles, demands, and trends in higher education. The book highlights the impact of fiscal constraints, demands for greater accountability, growing enrollments, student educational and ethnic diversity, and rapid technological advances on the “traditional” educational experience and the professional lives of faculty. While the book focuses primarily on traditional liberal arts education, PA educators would agree that these trends are not confined to those disciplines. PA and other medical educators are held to the same standards and must address these issues as well. And we may even assert that the challenges are more acute for PA and medical faculty, as they educate the next generation of health professionals in a rapidly changing health care environment.

The authors challenge institutions to consider several essential elements for a productive and rewarding faculty experience. Institutions of higher learning are encouraged to implement policies and procedures that foster respect, shared decision making, and joint leadership. The authors also suggest that faculty should enjoy employment equity — that is, the right of every faculty member, regardless of appointment type, to be treated fairly — academic freedom and professional autonomy, and work flexibility, including options in academic appointment and work scheduling, as well as opportunities for professional growth and collegiality. The authors present a compelling argument for action and change in all aspects of higher education in order to facilitate faculty satisfaction, productivity, and stability. If dramatic change is needed in liberal arts education, which traditionally operates on a nine-month academic calendar, what is needed to foster satisfaction, productivity, and stability among busy PA faculty?

PA faculty, like their colleagues in the liberal arts, should be afforded professional opportunities that foster collegiality, employment equity, and work flexibility, etc. Senior administrators and institutional leaders should be encouraged to examine institutional policies and procedures to support the unique needs of PA faculty. In an initial step toward this end, PAEA will be hosting its first Deans and Administrators Workshop at the upcoming Annual Education Forum in Tucson. This session is designed to introduce senior administrators to many of the unique features of the PA educational process. Other educational sessions, like the Basic Skills Faculty Development Workshop, the Research Institute’s Basic Research Track, and the Program Director Skills Development Workshop, as well as the vast array of professional presentations, provide abundant opportunities for faculty development and professional collegiality. But more is needed. As PAEA and PA educators look toward the future of PA education, we must continue to explore creative ways to support PA faculty and encourage institutions to allocate the time faculty need to undertake the reinvention process and find greater professional satisfaction, productivity, and stability.