Faculty Retention

Diverse, capable, engaged faculty are our most valuable resource in academic medicine.

Still, a recent 2017 report on faculty engagement by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) found that, within the next 1-2 years, more than 30 percent of faculty were preparing to or considering leaving their current institution. There are not only significant financial costs to faculty turnover, but faculty turnover impacts students, clinical teams, patients, and the internal and external perceptions of the institution.

Providing retention supports to faculty are critical, especially for those at higher risk of leaving, including faculty who are nontenure clinical track, underrepresented minorities in medicine, and women. Additionally, understanding and demonstrating ongoing efforts to address the challenges associated with an increasingly demanding health care environment for clinical faculty and a significantly more competitive grant environment for research faculty are crucial.

"Employee engagement is the art and science of engaging people in authentic and recognized connections to strategy, roles, performance, organization, community, relationships, customers, development, energy and happiness to leverage, sustain and transform work into results."

— David Zinger, Employee Engagement Consultant

Creative image of light bulbs appearing as brains

Faculty Retention Resources

View research and resources on faculty retention

Factors Associated with Faculty Satisfaction

Faculty satisfaction is made up of complex set of factors related to the individual, relationships, and organizational culture. In the 2017 AAMC report, the following factors were associated with academic medical faculty’s overall satisfaction with their medical school:

Their jobs
Compensation and benefits
Growth opportunities
Collegiality and collaboration
Workplace culture
Faculty recruitment and retention
Focus on medical school mission
Medical school governance

Faculty Success at the Medical College of Georgia

Because addressing faculty retention requires a strategic, multidimensional approach, the Office for Faculty Success within Faculty Affairs is working closely with a number of committees, groups, and department/units at MCG and Augusta University that focus on faculty governance, well-being, development, promotion and tenure, diversity and inclusion, and compensation and benefits.

Initiatives by the MCG Office for Faculty Success include:

Facilitating a process for all new faculty to have a solid Faculty Academic Development Plan for their first 3-5 years
Building a culture that fosters high quality mentoring relationships and networks
Developing programs and services focused on faculty needs at all career development levels
Offering 1:1 faculty consultation services for a personalized, planful approach to career development and overcoming barriers to success
Providing academic departments with support to implement efforts focused on faculty career support and retention
Offering personalized exit, intent-to-leave, and stay interviews with faculty to better understand their experiences at MCG and how we can improve upon them