Abstract
The article in this issue by Simon and colleagues, entitled Gender Differences in Academic Productivity and Advancement Among Dental School Faculty 1 points out that an equal number of women and men are now graduating from dental school. This trend is a positive one and provides hope that the increased number of women graduates may create a larger pool of future academics. Yet in Simon's data, only a minority of all faculty members were women, and even fewer held a rank of full professor. Interestingly though, at all levels of academic advancement up to full professors, women had graduated more recently (see Table 2 of Simon's article), and when corrected for academic productivity (number of publications) and time since graduation, the association between gender and academic rank was not significant. The authors show that women appear to advance more quickly than men to higher academic rank, but remain under-represented based on the expectation from the number of women who graduate from dental school. This seems to be an argument to make academic dentistry more appealing to women by providing greater support and mentoring so that women will choose academics more frequently. The authors discuss the challenges that women academics face in their career, including individual roles and responsibilities both professionally and personally, and the need for a more supportive academic climate.
The most recent version of the American Dental Education Association (ADEA) Snapshot of Dental Education provided information about the ages of full-time and part-time dental school faculty. The ADEA reported that the total faculty count for 2016–2017 was 10,112 individuals. Within the faculty count 4,908 or 48.5% were full-time and 5,204 or 51.5% were part-time faculty. More than half, 6,267 of the full-and part-time faculty were 50 years or older. 2 Thus, there is significant concern about a future faculty shortage in dental education. Based on this concern, the ADEA has taken numerous steps to promote awareness of academic careers among predoctoral, allied dental students, and advanced education residents including participation in institutional ADEA chapters, faculty-student mentorship, academic careers fellowship programs, and sharing resources on financial assistance and loan repayment programs. 3 The ADEA Snapshot Report also highlighted that in the past five years, dental school enrollment includes more women students, nearly 50%.
We can be proud of the increase in women students at dental schools, but we need to identify strategies to increase interest in academic careers. ADEA and other health professions are to be commended for their efforts to recruit individuals into academia. Formalized programs, whether mentoring or active engagement of students in institutional or association-related activities reflect a commitment to creating a pipeline. However, in addition to working with students, there must be a parallel effort to work with current faculty to provide direction as to how they can become ambassadors and advocates of a teaching career.
Models exist that can be modified for individual institutions to encourage and convince current students or recent graduates that teaching and research careers are viable options. Critical to implementing any strategy is a recognition that faculty are aging, and that tomorrow's faculty will most likely be more female and more diverse. Institutions must adopt family-friendly policies, attractive compensation packages and create a visible environment that is respectful and supportive for all employees.
Academic institutions, as part of their strategic plans, should make recruitment of faculty, with an emphasis on diversity, a priority. This statement is not intended to ignore the fact that retention of faculty is also critical to the future of higher education. It is imperative to move from just acknowledging the data and the concern about a faculty shortage, to outlining both formal and informal actionable steps to recruit faculty for the next generations of students. It is a legacy that should begin now.