Many faculty in today's academic medical centers face high levels of stress and low career satisfaction. Understanding faculty vitality is critically important for the health of our academic medical centers, yet the concept is ill-defined and lacking a comprehensive model. Expanding on previous research that examines vital faculty in higher education broadly and in academic medical centers specifically, this study proposes an expanded model of the unique factors that contribute to faculty vitality in academic medicine. We developed an online survey on the basis of a conceptual model (N = 564) and used linear regression to investigate the fit of the model. We examined the relationships of two predictor variables measuring Primary Unit Climate and Leadership and Career and Life Management with an overall Faculty Vitality index comprised of three measures: Professional Engagement, Career Satisfaction, and Productivity. The findings revealed significant predictive relationships between Primary Unit Climate and Leadership, Career and Life Management, and Faculty Vitality. The overall model accounted for 59% of the variance in the overall Faculty Vitality Index. The results provide new insights into the developing model of faculty vitality and inform initiatives to support faculty in academic medical centers. Given the immense challenges faced by faculty, now more than ever do we need reliable evidence regarding what sustains faculty vitality.
Although acknowledged that academic advising helps students adjust to and deal with the challenges of college, little is known about students' frequency of interactions with advisors. Using data from 52,546 full-time, first-year students at 209 diverse institutions, we examined the frequency with which students met with academic advisors and the way these interactions vary by student and institutional characteristics. We found that the typical first-year student met with an advisor 1 to 3 times during his or her first college year; however, the number of meetings varied across student subpopulations and institutional types.
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