title: The Impact of a Junior Faculty Fellowship Award on Academic Advancement and Retention.
abstract: Academic faculty experience barriers to career development and promotion. In 1996, Harvard Medical School (HMS) initiated an intramural junior faculty fellowship to address these obstacles. The authors sought to understand whether receiving a fellowship was associated with more rapid academic promotion and retention.
  
  
  
  Junior faculty fellowship recipients and all other instructor and assistant professors at HMS between 1996 and 2011 were identified. Using propensity score modeling, the authors created a matched comparison group for the fellowship recipients based on educational background, training, academic rank, department, hospital affiliation, and demographics. Time to promotion and time to leaving were assessed by Kaplan-Meier curves.
  
  
  
  A total of 622 junior faculty received fellowships. Faculty who received fellowships while instructors (n = 480) had shorter times to promotion to assistant professor (P < .0001) and longer retention times (P < .0001) than matched controls. There were no significant differences in time to promotion for assistant professors who received fellowships (n = 142) compared with matched controls, but assistant professor fellowship recipients were significantly more likely to remain longer on the faculty (P = .0005). Women instructors advanced more quickly than matched controls, while male instructors' rates of promotions did not differ.
  
  
  
  Fellowships to support junior faculty were associated with shorter times to promotion for instructors and more sustained faculty retention for both instructors and assistant professors. This suggests that relatively small amounts of funding early in faculty careers can play a critical role in supporting academic advancement and retention.
authors.affiliation: M.T. Connelly is assistant professor, Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, and dean for faculty affairs, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. A.M. Sullivan is assistant professor, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and director for education research, Academy at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. M. Chinchilla is programmer analyst, Office for Faculty Affairs, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. M.L. Dale is former dean for faculty and research integrity, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. S.J. Emans is Mary Ellen Avery Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School, chief, Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine, director, Office of Faculty Development, and Robert Masland Jr. Chair in Adolescent Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts. C.C. Nadelson is professor, Department of Psychiatry, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. M.T. Notman is clinical professor, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. N.J. Tarbell is C.C. Wang Professor of Radiation Oncology, Department of Radiation Oncology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and dean for academic and clinical affairs, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts. C.M. Zigler is assistant professor, Department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts. E.G. Shore is senior consultant to the Office for Academic and Clinical Affairs and former dean for faculty affairs, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts.
authors.forename: Maureen T
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Connelly
authors.forename: Amy M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Sullivan
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chinchilla
authors.forename: Margaret L
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Dale
authors.forename: S Jean
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Emans
authors.forename: Carol Cooperman
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Nadelson
authors.forename: Malkah Tolpin
authors.initials: MT
authors.lastname: Notman
authors.forename: Nancy J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Tarbell
authors.forename: Corwin M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Zigler
authors.forename: Eleanor G
authors.initials: EG
authors.lastname: Shore
mesh_terms: D000046:Academic Medical Centers / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D000328:Adult; D001363:Awards and Prizes; D001900:Boston; D002322:Career Mobility; D003258:Consumer Behavior / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005180:Faculty, Medical / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005257:Fellowships and Scholarships / Q000191:economics* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010563:Personnel Turnover / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012577:Schools, Medical / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D012737:Sex Factors; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013997:Time Factors