27 September 2010

Wilkins Board Room, 3:00 to 4:30 p.m.

Members present: Emelia Benjamin (co-chair), Peter Cahn (recorder), Ariel Hirsch, Michael Ieong, Judith Jones (co-chair), Celeste Kong, Sharon Levine, Victoria Parker, Barbara Schreiber

I. Recruitment
A. Update from information session

1. The first information was well-attended, but would like to see more clinicians apply.

2. We can circulate an electronic copy of the executive summary to targeted candidates

B. Update from meetings with chairs

1. Chairs have been supportive with few exceptions.

2. Instructors and recent Associate Professors can apply

3. Some expressed concern about the program’s name. But “junior faculty” is also problematic.

The committee agreed to keep the current name.

C. Action item: identify potential applicants to attend next information session (particularly clinicians, underrepresented minorities)

II. Evaluation
A. IRB update

1. The proposal is nearly ready for submission. Members who would like to read it can have access through INSPIR

2. The committee agreed that although the data gathered will not be perfect, we should still attempt to collect some, particularly given the dismal state of the literature.

3. The groups won’t be randomized unless we receive 32 complete applications. In any case, it is worth submitting the protocol.

B. Possible data collection instruments

1. Job satisfaction questions include 5-item surveys or a single, global question.

2. Organizational commitment surveys can be 3, 9, or 15 items.

3. Most members liked the idea of using language from the BU Faculty Climate Survey because it includes benchmark data.

4. A personal profile from the resilience questionnaire might be offered to participants. It will depend on cost and training task force members to administer and interpret it.

5. For more objective measures, the group discussed testing participants on their knowledge of key academic areas and submitting their CVs to bibliometric analysis. If the intervention period is too short to show impact factor of publications, we might consider expanding the research to a 5-year window.

6. It is not necessary to transcribe interviews because the analysis will be thematic, not linguistic. We could decide to record as a backup. Ideally, a grant would enable the investigators to hire transcribers and an outside interviewer.

C. List of mentors

1. Task Force members should start identifying potential mentors to serve in the program. After seeing the applications, we can make more tailored matches.

2. Mentors should be associate or full professors. They can expect to devote at least one hour per month.

3. We can generate a grid of willing mentors and the domains of their expertise: clinical, educational, quality assurance, grant-writing, publications