Office of Academic and Faculty Affairs

Department of Pediatrics Faculty Affairs is committed to the success of all faculty members in the Department. Our goal is to promote faculty advancement and well-being by providing tools to successfully navigate a career at the University of Colorado. The resources provided here are not intended to replace what many sections are already doing, but rather to enhance any existing programs and ensure all faculty have a foundation for a fulfilling career.

Successful academic careers are the result of thoughtful planning and knowledgeable guidance. A defined career plan is an essential “road map” for reaching your goals. Use the resources below to develop your own plan and to find colleagues who can advise you along the way.Under this section, you will find information tailored to early career, mid-career, and senior-career faculty.

• Department of Pediatrics Career Development Plan (PDF)
• Self-Assessment and Mentor Mosaic Map (PDF)

Early career faculty have less than 7-10 years of faculty experience in their fields. Early career faculty should  focus on procuring and maintaining the mentoring, training, and resources necessary as they begin to define their career paths. Career development will vary by area of focus, training, interests, and anticipated faculty series. Please refer to the Faculty Handbook [link will be inserted] for additional details on career development.

Mid-career faculty generally have more than 7-10 years of faculty experience in their fields. Mid-career faculty should focus on achieving excellence in their chosen career path, e.g. building on accomplishments as early career faculty towards a path of increasing independence, focusing on primary areas of interest, actively mentoring trainees and early career faculty, and developing leadership skills. Please refer to the Faculty Handbook [link will be inserted] for additional details on career development.

Senior-career faculty generally have more than 14 - 20 years of faculty experience in their fields. Senior faculty should focus on adding to their accomplishments; contributing to the missions of our department; making an impact on the next generation of clinicians, educators, and scientists; and, in many cases, becoming leaders at the local, regional, national, and/or international levels.

Mentoring

The Department of Pediatrics views mentoring as an important aspect of faculty professional and career development. Our Office of Faculty Affairs, along with the School of Medicine Office of Faculty Affairs, is dedicated to enhancing faculty development through our mentoring program, especially for junior faculty.

Mentoring is a reciprocal and collaborative learning relationship in which mentor and mentee agree to a partnership and share responsibility and accountability toward the achievement of mutually defined goals that will develop a mentee’s skills, abilities, knowledge, and thinking.

Learn more about our mentoring policy, navigator program, and other School of Medicine resources through these links below.

• Department of Pediatrics Mentoring Policy (PDF)

Mentor Navigators will help faculty identify potential mentors and provide objective assessments of career and research plans. The concept of a Mentor Navigator has been developed to augment, not replace, the role of any established faculty mentor or mentoring team.

Mentoring Resources

Clinical Faculty Scholars Program (CFSP)
Helps emerging investigators obtain a career development award (e.g. K08, K23), or a first independent project award (R21, R01 or equivalent) via development of an individual career plan and regular individual mentorship from four experienced senior researchers.

Colorado Immersion Training (CIT)
Brings together experts in community engagement to help investigators address the community relevance of their research activities as well as to help communities ask and answer questions about their health

Colorado Mentor (CO-Mentor) Training Program
Provides evidence-based strategies to teach mentor/mentee pairs the practical skills they need for mentoring success

Colorado PROFILES
A search engine which helps investigators and students find experts, potential collaborators, or mentors both at AMC and across the nation

Adult & Child Center for Outcomes Research & Delivery Science (ACCORDS)
ACCORDS supports both methodologic cores and programs. Our methodologic cores provide support for the development of new projects, grant proposals for faculty, consultative support to investigators, as well as support for our programmatic areas. Programs focus on the development of an educational or scientific discipline and may also have a methodologic core component.

I-Corps@CCTSI
An entrepreneurial training that and uses proven customer-discovery methodologies for startups and guides teams through the early stages of discovery where they can test their business model hypotheses for their technology/idea and thereby accelerate the translation of innovations from the lab to clinical practice.

KL2 (K12) Research Scholar Awards
Provides career development to train awardees to obtain individual funding via participation in monthly mentoring/career development sessions and the annual national CTSA consortium meeting.

Optional Clinical Research Training and Resources
Available for study coordinators and investigators and cover issues such as UCD IRB processes, budgeting for a clinical trial, recruitment and informed consent, FDA audits, and good clinical practice guidelines. View regulatory tools and forms.

PreK and K to R Review Programs
Grant pre-submission mock grant review processes for faculty who are submitting their first K- or R-level application to the NIH and provides internal review prior to submission to increase the chances for success

Research Studio Program
A 90 minute structured, collaborative roundtable discussion with relevant research experts to help investigators with specific questions and is based on models from industry that demonstrate that multidisciplinary content experts can increase research impact. The service is free and funded by the CCTSI