Mentoring and Support Through Your Whole Career
Arthur S. Levine, senior vice chancellor for the health sciences, initiated a new approach to mentoring that resulted in the establishment of the Office of Academic Career Development. The office is the first program to support academic scientists across all six of the university’s schools of the health sciences and across the spectrum of their careers—as graduate and medical students, clinical and postdoctoral fellows, residents, and faculty. The office addresses the academic career as a series of developmental stages that require mentoring at each step, both at the individual and the institutional level. The goal is to ensure successful transitions at each phase of an academic career, starting with entry into a first faculty position and continuing as faculty members assume leadership roles at the local, national, and international levels.
With this continuum in mind, the office focused initially on meeting the special, and often neglected, career development needs of postdoctoral and clinical fellows—recent recipients of doctoral degrees who train under established faculty members with the ultimate goal of pursuing an academic career. Programs include
• An introductory event each semester designed to orient new postdoctoral fellows to a full academic and social life in Pittsburgh.
• A career symposium for postdoctoral fellows during the university’s annual three-day celebration of science and technology that showcases scientific career pathways.
• Workshops and symposia on topics relevant to the junior investigator, including programs on developing networking skills, managing interpersonal conflict, publishing in respected journals, and enhancing presentation skills.
The office designed programs for senior postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty members as well. Citing feelings of isolation and alienation, many faculty members, especially women and underrepresented minorities, leave the academic pipeline during early career transitions. Programs that target early-career challenges include:
• Workshops on National Institutes of Health Mentored Career Development Awards. These are offered annually to help young investigators secure early-career grant support. The workshops provide strategies for increasing the probability that an award applicant will compete successfully for funding and promote the independence of new investigators.
• A three-day course in scientific management and leadership. The course equips new investigators with the technical and interpersonal skills necessary to lead innovative, independent, and successful academic research programs.
• A series that offers additional professional development opportunities for junior as well as senior faculty. Topics have included building work-life balance, leading successful teams, maximizing mentoring relationships, and achieving promotion and tenure.
In addition to supporting faculty across the health sciences, the Office of Academic Career Development works to enhance the professional development of women and diversify the internal pool of promising new academic leaders. Because networking with successful female role models prepares women faculty members and fellows for academic leadership, the office has introduced activities and events for women scientists and clinicians, including
• An annual reception for women faculty, fellows, and graduate and undergraduate students.
• A series that enables women fellows and junior faculty members to network across departments and to learn from more senior women strategies for advancing one’s career and achieving a balance between career and personal life.
• A biannual seminar series in which prominent women academics from other institutions showcase their scholarship and share their personal career trajectories.
Under the leadership of Joan M. Lakoski, assistant vice chancellor of academic career development, the office represents the interests of the professional health sciences community to the university’s senior administration, especially with regard to family-friendly policies and practices. Lakoski also collaborates with leaders within individual schools to assess and address the career development needs of current and future faculty. The office does not play a role in hiring, promotion, or tenure decisions, although it works with administrative and faculty groups to improve policies and procedures that might affect such decisions.
The office also serves as a clearinghouse for information about career development programs and services offered by other entities across the university. Fellows and faculty members come to the office to seek referrals for individual career consultations, and administrative colleagues from other colleges or universities come to Pitt as visiting scholars to learn how to replicate features of this unique model at their home institutions.
Additional information about the University of Pittsburgh Health Sciences Office of Academic Career Development is available at http://www.oacd.health.pitt.edu.
—Darlene F. Zellers
Director, Health Sciences Office of Academic Career Development, University of Pittsburgh
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