Assessing Students' Impressions of the Cultural Awareness of Pharmacy Faculty and Students.

To determine pharmacy students' impressions of their faculty's interactions with diverse student and patient populations. Three student focus groups were convened. Eighty-four page transcripts were coded, and emergent themes were identified by qualitative analysis.

Assessing outcomes and perceived benefits of a professional development seminar series.

Objective: To evaluate the outcomes of alumni who were enrolled in a professional development seminar series during their doctor of pharmacy program.

Design: A weekly development seminar series was administered over 5 semesters with the goal of bringing academic advisees together to help develop performance-based abilities, prepare them for entry into the profession after graduation, and provide exposure to different career opportunities.

Assessment: A survey instrument containing 39 Likert-type scale items, 2 open-ended questions, and a 10-item demographic survey was created and content-validated to assess the effect of the seminar series on alumni advisees' perceived outcomes and professional development since their graduation.

Engaging external senior faculty members as faculty mentors.

A small nonprofit private college with limited resources and a high proportion of junior faculty developed a nontraditional external faculty mentor program in the summer of 2011 in response to the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) faculty survey data regarding the professional development needs of pharmacy faculty members. Experienced faculty members with national reputations from other colleges and schools of pharmacy were hired as consultants to serve as mentors for assigned faculty members. Program goals were to provide directed, individual mentorship for pharmacy practice and basic science faculty members, expand peer review of faculty teaching prowess, and enhance monthly faculty development programming.

The 4-year evolution of a social and behavioral pharmacy course.

Objective: To evaluate the impact of 3 sequential course revisions on student performance in and perceived value of a social science-based course.

Design: The initial revision emphasized study of the primary literature and traditional assessments of student learning. Subsequent course revisions emphasized active learning and reflective assessment methodologies.