Re-evaluation of a scholarship committee’s ability to foster scholarly growth of pharmacy practice faculty

The objective of this article is to describe the impact of a pharmacy practice department scholarship committee on faculty scholarship attitudes and abilities, as well as change in faculty perception since initial evaluation. A questionnaire was distributed to pharmacy practice faculty to assess: (1) participation in events, (2) barriers that prevented participation, (3) importance and satisfaction of committee goals, (4) satisfaction with committee’s programming formats, and (5) change in attitudes and interests toward scholarship that resulted from programming. The survey instrument included open-ended, rank order, and Likert-scale questions. A total of 27 faculty members completed the survey (61% response rate). Respondents indicated schedule conflicts were the main participation barrier (92%), committee goals were perceived as important, and most were satisfied with goal achievement (>93%). Most faculty attitudes toward scholarship and scholarly abilities improved as a result of committee programming (88%). Compared to prior evaluation, faculty were less likely to agree that the committee inspired them to take on additional projects (66% vs 95%, p = 0.022) and continue (73% vs 95%, p = 0.026) or complete (70% vs 94%, p = 0.03) previously started projects. Compared to a high initial benchmark, faculty participate less frequently in scholarship committee activities due to schedule-related barriers. As a result, perceived benefits of scholarly programming have slightly diminished since initial observation. Re-evaluation of faculty experience level, workload, and preferences for topics might be required to maintain participation and perceived benefit.