Welcome to the AAMC Group on Faculty Affairs (GFA)

Professional Development Conference

July 9-11, 2025, Portland, Oregon

Call for Proposals

Submission Deadline: January 3, 2025, 11:59 pm PST

Instructional Guide

The AAMC GFA Call for Proposals is now open! The GFA Program Planning Committee invite proposals for skill-based workshops, podium presentations, and posters for the Group on Faculty Affairs Professional Development Conference scheduled for July 9-11, 2025 at Hyatt Regency Portland at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon.

All proposals must be submitted online by January 3, 2025, 11:59 pm PST. Late submissions will not be accepted. Acceptance notifications will be sent by February 2025. Submitters are strongly encouraged to read the instructional guide for all the details before logging in to submit a proposal.

Conference Content

As experts in the field, your knowledge and perspectives drive the topics and sessions featured at the conference. The GFA Program Planning Committee has designed specific opportunities to highlight your work. Submit a proposal in one of three ways:

1. Skill-based Workshops

2. Podium Presentations

3. Posters 

The conference program will feature a mixture of presentations that address the needs and challenges of seasoned, mid-career, new faculty, and professional staff colleagues. We highly encourage interactive and innovative submissions that incorporate collaborations. This includes partnerships both within individual schools, such as among faculty and administrative staff, and across institutions, bringing together diverse perspectives. Preference will be given to submissions that incorporate speakers and content from both public and private institutions, medical schools, teaching hospitals, or healthcare systems, large and small institutions, and recognizes varying levels of resources.

Planning and Designing

Support the learning by tailoring your submission. These sessions provide opportunities for institutions to highlight their recent innovations, projects, systems, or other practices. They should be applicable to other institutions and should incorporate successes as well as challenges along the way. Sessions should include takeaways such as actions, tips, tools, and processes that can be applied immediately. All sessions should include ample time to engage the audience in discussion. Proposals that are organized like case studies are encouraged. We also encourage breakout sessions that offer a deep dive into a specific topic. Please indicate in your submission whether your session will be structured as a deep dive.

Here are some important recommendations:

1. We are looking for innovative, engaging, and collaborative submissions.
2. The preferred types of sessions are hands-on workshops, demonstrations/simulations, small group discussions, and interactive panels over lectures.
3. The preferred participant activities are problem-solving exercises and discussing case studies. Activities should highlight innovation, new and/or experimental learning.
4. Presentations should spark discussions and deliver strategies, best practices, and solutions.
5. Provide handouts, tools, resources, presentations, or website links for the participants.

NOTE: You are responsible for uploading electronic materials to the conference website/app and for printing and distributing physical materials yourself.

Explore videos and guides and examine tips and tools for planning, designing, developing, and delivering a terrific conference session. Submitters are strongly encouraged to use the instructional guide before logging in to submit a proposal.

Suggested Topics of Interest:

The GFA Program Planning Committee has identified topics of interest related to the conference theme—Faculty Affairs in a New Era: Adaptive Approaches to Engagement, Retention, and Collaboration.

Sample topics of interest are included below, although this list is not exhaustive. The committee will accept proposals related to other submissions of interest to faculty affairs professionals.

Developing the next generation of leaders

• Mentorship, coaching, and transitions of faculty and administrative staff at early-career, mid-career, late-career and senior levels
• Leadership development for basic science, clinical, and for education-focused faculty members
• Personal leadership development tools and models
• Developing professional and administrative staff—managing change, communication skills, professional advancement and promotion
• Succession Planning: How institutions can prepare for leadership transitions and maintain organizational stability
• Collaborative Leadership Models: Encouraging interdisciplinary collaboration in leadership roles across research, education, and clinical settings
• Navigating Institutional Politics: Understanding and managing the complexities of organizational structures and relationships in academic medicine
• What tools are institutions using to develop leaders?

Advocacy

• How do you move hot topics forward or engage in challenging conversations at your institution?
• Building a case for change: Using data, narratives, and trends to make your argument more compelling
• Engaging Stakeholders: Lessons on how to work with your dean, hospital leadership and other key partners to promote collaboration
• Advocating for institutional transparency and accountability—promoting pay equity, resources and opportunities to enhance faculty engagement
• Building Community Engagement: How institutions connect, engage, and build communities to align with their missions and foster collaborative relationships

The Changing Academy

• Institutional Restructuring: Mergers, acquisitions, and organizational changes are becoming more frequent. What are the impacts of these structural shifts on faculty roles, responsibilities, and institutional culture? How can faculty be better prepared to thrive in changing environments?
• Erosion of Tenure: The reduction of tenure positions is reshaping faculty careers. How are institutions responding to the decline in tenure-track positions, and what are the implications for faculty retention, recruitment, and career satisfaction?
• Impact on Faculty Development and Engagement: How do these evolving landscapes influence the career trajectories of current and future faculty members? What can faculty affairs do to provide stability, professional growth opportunities, and meaningful engagement during times of institutional change?
• Leveraging Data to Drive Institutional Change: How are institutions utilizing data (e.g., faculty performance, engagement, workload) to implement strategic changes? What role does data play in overcoming resistance to new initiatives and fostering institutional buy-in?

Inclusive and Safe Environments

• Professionalism: Best practices for handling issues with professionalism, from microaggressions to major transgressions
• Ending discrimination and harassment in academic medicine (i.e., sexual, gender, ageism, etc.)
• How states with diversity bans are handling these challenges and what can be learned from their experiences
• How do you build an environment that values, expects and amplifies a diversity of voices?
• Strategies for collaboration and networking in a diverse environment
• Promoting civil discourse, restorative practices, and freedom of expression

Organizational Policies, Practices and Procedures

• Developing and supporting research and scholarship in faculty affairs
• Faculty appointment/promotion and tenure policies and practices—innovative approaches to faculty recruitment, appointment, and promotion, including holistic reviews and reimagined tenure processes
• Annual faculty reviews and post-tenure reviews: Best practices for conducting comprehensive annual reviews and post-tenure evaluations, promoting faculty growth, accountability and retention
• Addressing disruptive faculty and faculty remediation: How institutions are handling disruptive behavior and implementing remediation processes to ensure professional conduct, support development, and improve retention
• Strategies to enhance faculty engagement through meaningful recognition programs and initiatives
• Wellbeing: Organizational approaches and systems designed to support the wellbeing, addressing both personal and professional health to improve retention
• How institutions can effectively manage the online presence (websites, social media) of faculty, professional, and administrative staff to enhance institutional reputation and professional engagement
• Use of emerging technologies: The impact of current and emerging technologies, especially AI, on clinical, educational, and administrative practices. Specific focus areas include compliance, intellectual property, academic integrity, and data privacy in the evolving digital landscape

 

You are encouraged to compose the submission in Word before completing the online submission form. All fields will be required to complete a submission.

Important Note: The GFA Program Planning Committee highly encourages collaborative submissions. Submitters are encouraged to identify colleagues either from the home institution or another. The reviewers will place higher preference on collaborative submissions.

Submission Deadline: January 3, 2025, 11:59 PM (PST)
Late submissions will not be accepted.

Notification Date: February 2025

For more information please contact: GFA@aamc.org