Required Faculty Resources for Accredited Public Health Programs and Schools of Public Health *

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1 Required Faculty Resources for Accredited Public Health Programs and Schools of Public Health * Background and context The purpose of this paper is to help schools and programs understand the expectations of the Council on Education for Public Health about faculty resources and to help on-site evaluators and Councilors assess the schools and programs faculty resource levels. This document does not establish new policy or amend existing policy but provides assistance to CEPH constituents in making decisions regarding the size of the faculty complement. In particular, this paper intends to clarify the faculty resource expectations established by 2005 revisions to the accreditation criteria for schools and programs. Public Health Programs The Accreditation Criteria for Public Health Programs, amended June 2005 require that The program shall have resources adequate to fulfill its stated mission and goals, and its instructional, research and service objectives. (p. 7) The interpretive language refines this expectation. A critical mass of faculty is necessary to support each MPH specialty area and, unless otherwise justified, this would require at least three full-time faculty who are trained and experienced in the discipline. For areas offering a doctoral degree program, there must be at least five full-time faculty, trained and experienced in the discipline to support it. While teaching resources may be drawn from other parts of the university and from professionals in practice settings, as well as people from the community, there must be a central core of faculty to sustain the curricular requirements for each specialty. (p. 7) Thus, an accredited public health program must have at least three core faculty for each concentration it offers. If the program also offers a doctoral degree in any concentration area within the unit of accreditation, then the minimum faculty requirement rises: the program must have five core faculty in concentration areas that include both masters and doctoral degrees. Collaborative programs are subject to the same minimum faculty requirements. Each concentration offered must be supported by the requisite number of faculty members, though faculty may be drawn from multiple institutions to support a single concentration, when appropriate, but, typically, the minimum number of faculty may not be sufficient. See Public Health Programs and Schools of Public Health: beyond the minimum requirements, below, for additional information. * This is a technical assistance document, intended to be helpful to institutions seeking accreditation and to site visit teams in evaluating schools and programs. It is not a policy paper and does not supplant formally adopted criteria that guide the decision-making process of the Council on Education for Public Health. Interested parties should refer to Accreditation Criteria for Schools of Public Health, June 2005, or Accreditation Criteria for Public Health Programs, June 2005, for the accreditation criteria. 1

2 Definition of core faculty for programs Core faculty are full-time university employees. Adjunct faculty whose primary appointment is elsewhere (eg, at a local health department) are not eligible to count as core faculty, regardless of their level of commitment to the program, nor are individuals whose appointment at the university is less than full-time. Faculty with nine-month contracts may constitute core faculty if nine-month contracts are usual practice at the university. Core faculty spend a majority of time/effort (.50 full-time equivalent [FTE] or greater) on activities associated with the public health program. These activities must include regular teaching of a public health class or classes. See Notes on faculty FTE for programs for information on calculating FTE. Core faculty have appropriate training and experience to support the concentration with which they are associated. The first check for appropriate training and experience is typically from information provided in the self-study (see CEPH Template F, available at does the individual hold a graduate degree in the appropriate public health area or in an appropriate related field? Further consideration involves looking at CVs, including courses taught, research published, conference presentations, past professional positions, etc. The use of the term core faculty does not refer only to faculty who are assigned to teach the courses in the five areas of knowledge basic to public health (often called core courses ). Core faculty may teach core courses, but they may also teach courses in a specific area of concentration, electives, etc. Similarly, an adjunct faculty member might be assigned to teach a core course but would not be considered a member of the core faculty. Notes on Faculty FTE for programs There is no single, correct formula or method for calculating FTE. Each program must identify and clearly explain an appropriate method for its context. The FTE calculation must involve all aspects of a faculty member s contributions to the public health program: teaching, public health research and service, advising and serving on program committees. Some universities define FTE strictly in terms of teaching responsibility, but this definition should not be used for CEPH accreditation purposes. Thus, calculation of FTE based on CEPH s definition may differ from the standard FTE calculation used in the university context. The FTE must not count time spent teaching or advising for another degree program that is outside the unit of accreditation. If the unit of accreditation includes an MPH and an undergraduate degree in public health, faculty FTE should account for all effort allocated to the undergraduate and masters-level public health students. Similar logic applies when the unit of accreditation includes an MPH and one or more doctoral programs or the MPH and another masterslevel public health degree, eg, MS. 2

3 If the unit of accreditation includes only an MPH, faculty time spent teaching and advising students from an undergraduate, MS, doctoral or other professional program must not be included in the FTE presented for accreditation. This is true even if the other degree is located in the same department as the MPH or even if it is offered in the same topic area as the MPH. Research and service effort should be included in the FTE if the project impacts the public health program and its students. Strictly clinical work or basic science research often would not count in the FTE reported for accreditation purposes. The questions that follow may be helpful in determining whether the research or service activity constitutes a portion of the individual s FTE to the program. What is the topic? Does or could the project employ or use volunteer public health students as research assistants? Do examples from the project directly inform classroom teaching in public health and advising public health students? Schools of Public Health The Accreditation Criteria for Schools of Public Health, amended June 2005, indicate that The school shall have resources adequate to fulfill its stated mission and goals, and its instructional, research and service objectives. (p. 8) The interpretive language further explains this expectation. A critical mass of faculty is necessary to support each of the five core concentration areas and, unless otherwise justified, this would require at least five faculty who are trained and experienced in the discipline for each core MPH concentration area. For core areas offering a doctoral degree, the five faculty must be all full time in the school of public health. For core areas not offering a doctoral degree, the school should have a minimum of three full-time faculty plus two full-time equivalent (FTE) faculty. While teaching resources may be drawn from other parts of the university and from professionals in practice settings, as well as people from the community, there must be a central core of faculty to sustain the curricular requirements for each concentration. (p.8) 1. An accredited school of public health must have at least five core faculty for each core knowledge area in which it offers both masters and doctoral degrees. (The five core knowledge areas are defined in Criterion 2.1 of the Accreditation Criteria). Since accreditation requires that schools offer doctoral degrees in or relevant to at least three of the five core knowledge areas, this means that at least three core knowledge areas must have five core faculty. The expectation of at least three core areas with five core faculty holds true even if the school offers a doctoral degree that is interdisciplinary. If one of the school s three required doctoral degrees is an interdisciplinary offering, that triggers the expectation of five core faculty in any/all core areas to which the degree relates. For example, a school might offer a doctorate in maternal and child health that relates to epidemiology and social and behavioral sciences. In this scenario, 1) the school would have to offer at 3

4 least two doctoral degrees in addition to the interdisciplinary one, and 2) at least one of the additional doctoral degrees would have to be related to environmental health sciences, biostatistics or health services administration (the other three of the five core areas that are not addressed by the existing doctoral degree) and supported by five core faculty in one of those three areas. Also, when schools offer interdisciplinary degrees in addition to the required five core areas, it is unlikely that the minimum resource requirements would be sufficient: see Public Health Programs and Schools of Public Health: beyond the minimum requirements, below, for additional information. 2. An accredited school of public health must have at least three core faculty plus two FTE faculty for core knowledge areas in which it does not offer a doctoral degree. The school could comprise the required two FTE from four individuals with.50 FTE appointments each, for example, but contributions from no more than five individuals should be combined to comprise one FTE. Because of the array of required degrees that must be offered by all accredited schools, an accredited school that only offered the minimum curricular requirements would be required to have at least 21 full-time, core faculty plus four FTE. In collaborative schools, the lead institution must possess all of the faculty resources noted above (minimum of 21 core faculty plus four FTE with appropriately arrayed training and experience). Beyond that, concentrations offered either at the lead institution or at partner institutions are evaluated based on institution-specific considerations, including the student-tofaculty ratio and the school s mission, goals and objectives. See Public Health Programs and Schools of Public Health: beyond the minimum requirements, below, for additional information. Definition of core faculty for schools Core faculty in a school are those who are full-time university faculty with 100% appointments to the school of public health. If faculty hold honorary joint appointments with another school, college, center, etc. they may still serve as core public health faculty if both the substance of the extra-school duties and the decisions relating to faculty rank are fully vested in the school of public health. Core faculty may also include those who have appointments in a department or division of the school and also in a research or service center that is housed within the school or controlled by the dean. Core faculty in a school may hold any category of faculty classification and rank that is appropriate within the context, but teaching and mentoring students must be a fundamental component of core faculty s expectations. Full-time research track faculty who are hired without teaching expectations would not constitute core faculty. Public Health Programs and Schools of Public Health: beyond the minimum requirements The minimum complement of required core faculty is often not sufficient. Judging overall faculty resource adequacy is more nuanced. When the Council evaluates the overall adequacy of the faculty complement, the Council considers: 4

5 The school or program s mission, goals, objectives and competencies. Determination of adequate resources, beyond the minimum requirements, must be made in context. The student-faculty ratio (SFR). For graduate education, the SFR should typically be less than 10:1. The program s mission and curriculum add context that may make a lower student faculty ratio necessary. Both the student headcount (HC) and the student FTE are significant. These data provide important context in terms of the real resources required. Programs and schools that enroll only full-time students may have different resource profiles than programs and schools that enroll many part-time students, though all must meet the minimum requirements. All faculty resources, not just core faculty. Part-time and adjunct faculty, including community-based practitioners, make important contributions to the program or school, though they cannot substitute for a group of core faculty who meet the criteria outlined above. Full-time university faculty, including those from departments or colleges outside the program or school s home, may also make important contributions to a program s teaching, research, service and advisement, though their public health responsibilities constitute less than.50 of their FTE. Again, such faculty do not substitute for the required core faculty, but reviewers consider the roles played by all faculty in accomplishing the mission. The organizational and geographic context. For example, a collaborative program or school with students attending at multiple sites may require more than the minimum faculty resources in order to ensure that students on all campuses have ready access to faculty. Distribution authorized: June 14, 2008 Council on Education for Public Health 800 Eye Street NW, Suite 202 Washington, DC Phone: (202) Fax: (202) Website: 5