The Role of Consumerism in Pharmacy Education.

The notion of consumerism and that students are customers of pharmacy colleges was explored by proponents and opponents of the idea. First, a working definition of a "customer" in pharmacy education is pondered with respect to the roles and responsibilities of students and schools/colleges of pharmacy. Second, the pros and cons of "student-centered" education are considered in the light of students and their families being consumers of the educational experience. Third, the duality of student-centered education is discussed including student engagement/disengagement in their learning, professional/unprofessional behaviors, and shared/individual responsibilities. Lastly, learning and teaching environment dynamics are discerned when higher education becomes more student-centric and how that may affect the overall outcome of the student and the goals of pharmacy educational programs.

A mercantilização anunciada da Pesquisa na Espanha dos anos 2000 / The announced commodification of Research in Spain in the 2000s

Resumo: Este artigo problematiza o processo de mercantilização universitária na Espanha, relacionando-o às tendências globais, mediante realização de pesquisa bibliográfica. Destaca o papel crucial desempenhado pela Agência Nacional de Avaliação da Qualidade e Acreditação (ANECA) e a imposição progressiva de fatores de impacto em periódicos científicos como expressão do fortalecimento do denominado capitalismo acadêmico e do trabalho digital nas universidades, no âmbito das reformas universitárias dos anos 2000.

Abstract: This article problematizes the process of university commodification in Spain, relating it to global trends, through bibliographic research. It highlights the crucial role played by the National Agency for Quality Evaluation and Accreditation (ANECA) and the progressive imposition of impact factors in scientific journals as an expression of the strengthening of academic capitalism and digital work in universities, within the framework of the university reforms of the 2000s.

Situated transdisciplinarity in university policy: lessons for its institutionalization.

Although transdisciplinarity has taken hold in many areas, it is still a concept in its early stages of development in Latin America. We see an emergent opportunity to contribute to the current discussion on transdisciplinarity and its institutionalization at universities. Our specific interest in this paper is to disentangle the conditions under which transdisciplinarity is developed in Latin American contexts and how it can be better implemented within those contexts. Our study focuses on the context of "Latin American Public Universities." We examine the following research questions: (i) How is transdisciplinarity conceptualized in university policy and what are the conditions for its institutionalization? (ii) What lessons can be drawn more broadly from the role of university policy in the process of institutionalizing transdisciplinarity? To address these questions, we take the Universidad de Chile as a case study and apply a qualitative methodology of content analysis of university policy documents in the period 2006-2021. Grounded on empirical data, we elaborate on the concept of "situated transdisciplinarity" that emerges from the interplay between practices and policy at the Universidad de Chile and serves as a tool for future institutionalizing processes. We conclude that the concept of "situated transdisciplinarity" can orient transdisciplinary research policy, by problematizing discourses and perceptions.

Impact of Faculty and Programmatic Resources on the Proportion of Academic Doctoral Degrees in Professional Physical Therapist Education Programs.

OBJECTIVE: The Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education has introduced a requirement that 50% of core faculty members in a physical therapist education program should have an academic doctoral degree, which many programs are not currently meeting. Competition between programs for prestige and resources may explain the discrepancy of academic achievement among faculty despite accreditation standards. The purpose of this study was to identify faculty and program characteristics that are predictive of programs having a higher percentage of faculty with academic doctoral degrees. METHODS: Yearly accreditation data from 231 programs for a 10-year period were used in a fixed-effects panel analysis. RESULTS: For a 1 percentage point increase in the number of core faculty members, a program could expect a decline in academic doctoral degrees by 14% with all other variables held constant. For a 1% increase in either reported total cost or expenses per student, a program could expect a 7% decline in academic doctoral degrees with all other variables held constant. Programs that have been accredited for a longer period of time could expect to have proportionately more faculty members with academic doctoral degrees. CONCLUSIONS: Programs may be increasing their core faculty size to allow faculty with academic doctoral degrees to focus on scholarly productivity. The percentage of faculty with academic doctoral degrees declines as programs increase tuition and expenditures, but this may be due to programs' tendency to stratify individuals (including part-time core faculty) into teaching- and research-focused efforts to maximize their research prowess and status. IMPACT: This study illuminates existing relationships between physical therapist faculty staffing, time spent in research versus teaching, and program finances. The results of this study should be used to inform higher education policy initiatives aimed to lower competitive pressures and the costs of professional education.

Faculty and programmatic influences on the percentage of graduates of color from professional physical therapy programs in the United States.

The physical therapy profession in the United States suffers from a shortage of providers of color. This is unlikely to change with newly graduating students, as 2.6% of 2017 graduates were African American and 5.7% were Hispanic or Latino. Faculty mentorship has a more profound influence on the retention of underrepresented minority students as compared with students from privileged backgrounds, according to undergraduate literature. The influences of faculty characteristics on physical therapy graduates of color are unknown. The purpose of this study was to determine faculty and programmatic characteristics that could influence the percentage of physical therapy graduates of color. This study implemented the theory of academic capitalism to inform the results of a retrospective panel analysis, which used accreditation data from 2008 to 2017. Data from 231 programs was used to create fixed effects and random effects models to estimate the effects that faculty and program characteristics had on the percentage of graduates of color that a program produced. There was a statistically significant positive relationship between faculty of color and graduates of color (p < 0.001), but faculty must be sufficiently diverse before a program can expect a meaningful change in their percentage of graduates of color. Academic capitalist principles suggest that competition between programs for resources could negatively influence the proportion of graduates of color. Cause and effect associations between variables cannot be established. The authors concluded that professional physical therapy programs appeared to have increases in the percentages of graduates of color when they had more core faculty members of color.

Atmospheres of science: Experiencing scientific mobility.

This article uses notions of the atmospheric to engage with empirical material concerned with international mobility in science. It draws on recent conceptual work on atmospheres that frames them as allowing access to the affective qualities of everyday life and as 'productively nebulous': atmospheres exist between the local and the globally diffuse, the emergent and the staged, the intangible and the brutally present. Using atmospheric thinking, I devise 'apparatuses of attunement' to capture elusive aspects of life in science, as discussed in interviews with natural scientists about their experiences of international mobility. In particular I use ideas of the situation, atmospheric threads, and the staging of atmospheres to argue that scientists represent themselves as existing in between the particular and the general: they are never wholly at the mercy of the structures and expectations of globalized science, but are also never not in the grip of them. In closing I reflect on what this analysis reveals about the affective qualities of contemporary science, the forms of life being nurtured by the norms and expectations of research (policy), and the kinds of agency available to (these) scientists. The aim of the article is thus twofold: to demonstrate how concepts of atmospheres can be put to work in STS, and to contribute to research on international mobility in science and contemporary scientific careers.

Characteristics of Professional Physical Therapist Faculty and Doctor of Physical Therapy Programs, 2008-2017: Influences on Graduation Rates and First-Time National Physical Therapy Examination Pass Rates.

OBJECTIVE: Graduation rates and first-time National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE) pass rates among Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) programs have ranged from 30% to 100% and 0% to 100% between 2008 and 2017, respectively. Prior studies on predictors of graduation rates and NPTE pass rates from DPT programs have used cross-sectional data and have not studied faculty data. This study sought to understand how trends in DPT faculty and program characteristics correlated with graduation rates and first-time NPTE pass rates. METHODS: This study was a retrospective panel analysis of yearly data from 231 programs between 2008 and 2017. Random effects models estimated the correlations between faculty and program characteristics regarding graduation rates and first-time NPTE pass rates. RESULTS: Graduation rates peaked when programs devoted 25% of faculty time, on average, to scholarship. The number of peer-reviewed publications was positively correlated with graduation rates; however, the trend was logarithmic, indicating a diminishing rise in graduation rates as the number of publications exceeded 1 per faculty full-time equivalent. Tenure-track status, faculty of color, and part-time faculty were all negatively correlated with first-time NPTE pass rates. However, these 3 trends are likely not meaningful, because the predicted rates of decline in pass rates were minimal. CONCLUSIONS: Faculty engagement in scholarly activities can positively influence graduation rates, but only up to a certain level of faculty time devoted to scholarship. IMPACT: This is the first study to provide data on the influence of faculty on DPT student outcomes and will help education programs develop strategies to improve those outcomes.

El Capitalismo Organizacional como factor de riesgo Psicosocial:: Efectos psicológicos colaterales de las nuevas condiciones de trabajo en hospitales y universidades de naturaleza pública. Resultados Santander, Colombia / The Organizacional Capitalism as a Psychosocial risk factor: psychological collateral effects of the new working conditions in hospitals and universities of public nature. Results in Santander, Colombial

En esta investigación se analiza la subjetivación laboral del capitalismo organizacional a partir de las construcciones de significado de los trabajadores de hospitales y universidades públicas desarrolladas según: a) percepciones del entorno laboral, b) experiencia y sentido del trabajo, c) impacto psicosocial percibido en la calidad de vida laboral y el bienestar psicológico, y d) estrategias y prácticas de afrontamiento individual y colectivo de las demandas organizacionales. El estudio se desarrolló a través de una investigación de tipo cualitativo en la que se utilizó el análisis del discurso. Paralelamente, se aplicaron técnicas cuantitativas a efectos de realizar una triangulación de métodos como estrategia de investigación. Se desarrollaron entrevistas sobre las experiencias laborales actuales de los profesionales, acompañadas de la aplicación del Cuestionario de calidad de vida laboral (Blanch, 2008). Algunos resultados destacan como aspectos positivos: el compañerismo y mejoramiento de materiales; y entre los aspectos negativos, la sobrecarga laboral, el tipo de contratación, inestabilidad laboral y baja remuneración salarial.

This research analyzes the labor subjectification of organizational capitalism, considering the construction of meaning of workers in hospitals and universities in the public sector, developed according to: a) perceptions of the working environment, b) experience and meaning of work, c) perceived psychosocial impact on the quality of working life and psychological well-being, and d) strategies and practices of facing collective and individual organizational requirements. The study was developed through a qualitative research, by using discourse analysis. In parallel, we applied quantitative techniques, performing a triangulation of the methods as a research strategy. We conducted interviews in-depth, about current work experiences of professionals, along with the application of the questionnaire entitled Calidad de Vida Laboral (Blanch, 2008). Some of the results point out positive aspects like fellowship and the improvement of materials, and, as negative aspects, the excessive workload, the type of contract, job instability and wage compensation.