Becoming a great teacher is not enough to guarantee success in academia. You also need to master a variety of other skills in the classroom, university, lab, hospital, and clinical settings. AAL conducts the interprofessional Compass Program to provide early to mid-career faculty with one-on-one academic advancement guidance and an understanding of the culture of higher education, with a focus on these topics: planning for promotion and tenure, grant-writing skills, developing a research agenda, writing for publication, building mentor-protégé relationships, balancing work-life goals, and learning to collaborate across health professions. Applicable to both tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty, the Compass Program offers the academic tools that are vital for career planning and management.
Compass provides a bridge between AAL's teaching and learning programs (e.g., Institute for Teaching and Learning and Institute for Allied Health Educators) and leadership workshops such as our Chairs and Academic Administrators Management Program. AAL offers the Compass Program as an open-enrollment course, and it also can be customized for a single institution or academic health center.
The Compass Program also provides an interprofessional development opportunity for health professions educators: interact with colleagues from medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, allied health, public health, and other programs to gain experience and insights. Virtually every national association in academic health care now has a goal of improving interprofessional education and cooperation—with Compass you will have opportunities to collaborate in working groups across disciplinary lines.