Faculty Fellows Leadership Program
2007 Faculty Fellows Manuel Amieva, MD, PhD and Sylvia Plevritis, PhD
The Faculty Fellows Program is offered to selected mid-level faculty members on track to become high-level leaders. The goals of the program are to build community and to instill the skills and attitudes of leaders, including a commitment to the role of diversity in achieving excellence. Three major components make up the Faculty Fellows Program:
Monthly Dinner Meetings - Fellows attend monthly meetings featuring invited leaders who serve as role models by sharing their own leadership journeys, describing their own leadership styles and addressing specific challenges they have faced in their own careers.
Small-group Leadership Mentoring - Faculty members with the rank of full professor serve as volunteer mentors to groups of four or fewer participants. The groups meet once between each of the dinner meetings to discuss leadership challenges specifically and in general. Other topics, such as work/life balance issues, are also open for discussion.
Development Planning - Fellows engage in a structured process aimed at identifying opportunities for growth and development. The result is a personalized career development plan that they work with their chair or division chief to implement. Both the fellow and the chair/division chief are encouraged to take what they learn about the process for successfully developing career development plans and implement it with others whom they supervise.
Selection Process - The Faculty Fellows Program is designed to include 14 to 16 participants each year. Candidates are nominated by their department chairs and other supervisors, and are ranked on the basis of leadership potential and demonstrated commitment to building diversity. Particular effort is made to ensure diversity within each cohort, with approximately half being women and 25 percent being from underrepresented minorities.
TESTIMONIALS FROM PAST PARTICIPANTS
Are leaders born or made? Some individuals are certainly born with more leadership traits than others. However, the charisma that enables a natural born leader to become a true leader requires mentors and sculpturists, who can nurture and mold them into a leadership role. This is a principal goal of The Faculty Fellows Program that has several leaders with invested interest in stimulating and developing leadership skills. The Faculty Fellows Program gave us a critical understanding of the fundamental principles and skills in leadership ethics, communication, social entrepreneurship, resources, research and clinical administration, at the level of University and the School of Medicine. Most importantly, this program offered me a truly multi-faceted and well orchestrated opportunity to visualize the diversity in these individuals, and their transformation and journey into faculty leaders. In addition, it widened my collegial network within and beyond the participating faculty fellows.
Of note, the stories of leaders within the University and inclusion of the Google leadership was not only fascinating but also gave us an opportunity to understand the differences between academia and corporate culture. Monthly dinner meetings, small group meetings and situational analyses facilitated our vision and potential to communicate and enhance common goals.
The investment and efforts of all faculty leaders are truly admirable. Particularly, Dr. Valantine, Dr. Lane, Dr. Salvatierra and Dr. Boxer provided an in-depth insight on infrastructure that can maximize our potential and vision in diversity and a leadership role. In brief, the Faculty Fellows Program provided excellent gears that are critically essential for developing a better academic environment.
Daya Upadhyay, MD
Assistant Professor, Medicine-Pulmonary and Critical Care
2008 Faculty Fellows Participant