ADMINISTRATIVE CAREER PLANNING - A 5-YEAR UPDATE OF THE PHARMACY DEANSHIP

The educational, personal, and professional backgrounds of today's pha rmacy deans, as well as career and academic issues were assessed. Usin g a self-administered mail questionnaire and after two follow-up maili ngs, 64 of the 71 current deans (eight institutions with interim or ac ting deans were excluded) responded, yielding a 90.1 percent response rate. Forty-three deans had five years or more experience whereas the remaining 21 respondents were designated newly named deans. A strictly hierarchical model (faculty to department chair/head to assistant/ass ociate dean to dean) described the career ladder of less than 15 perce nt of newly named deans. If missing one level of the career ladder, ne wly named deans were more likely to have skipped assistant/associate d eanship appointments rather than to have skipped department chair/head positions in ascending the career ladder. Newly named deans recommend ed AACP programming, administrative fellowships, higher education mana gement institutes, and national professional organization involvement as most beneficial to professional development. The higher education a dministration mentoring activities of deans were assessed with a serie s of items. All respondents were asked to rate nine administrative ski lls on a five-point importance scale. The deans identified fiscal mana gement/resource allocation, governance and decision-making, strategic planning, and fund-raising as the most important managerial capabiliti es. Where appropriate, comparisons were made between newly named deans and deans with at least five years of experience to identify trends a nd changes. The results of this study provide insights into administra tive career paths and may be useful in career planning.