Women Faculty Development Conference a big success
Women have made great strides in gaining access to careers in medicine – they now account for about 50 percent of matriculants to medical schools in the United States. Despite these advances women continue to be disproportionately under represented in the higher ranks of academe. Support for women in academic medicine is an important role of modern academic health science centers. To being addressing this issue head on, the Health Science Colleges (Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Public Health) recently sponsored a joint Women Faculty Development Conference The aim of this conference was to provide networking opportunities across the normal boundaries among these different schools.
After a welcome from UI Provost Wallace Loh, the day started with motivational speaker Debra Salz discussing life balance. This allowed women the opportunity to look at eight different aspects of their lives and determine the balance among each of these areas. This was followed by a series of breakout sessions that included information on CV development, preparing for senior leadership, conflict management, negotiation, mentoring, and work life balance among others. The vast majority of these sessions were presented by women who are our colleagues throughout the university.
Susan Curry, Dean of the College of Public Health shared her path to leadership through a series of vignettes that highlighted important points in her career path, where she made mistakes, and how she was able to parlay potential negatives into excellent opportunities. This was followed by another series of breakout sessions and opportunities for networking. Associate Provost and professor of OB/GYN, Susan Johnson, wrapped up the day with tips for time management.
As the inaugural event, this meeting was very well received. Attendee evaluations provided a number of excellent ideas for future meetings. We expect this event to grow each year and we encourage all women faculty to attend.