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Underrepresented minority (URM) faculty hold about 10% of tenured positions, despite URM comprising more than 30% of the United States population; thus, disparities remain in the recruitment, development, retention and promotion of diverse faculty in large part because of a lack of mentoring. Research suggests that mentoring from senior URM faculty will lower URM faculty attrition rates and lead to success in tenure and promotion. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a mentoring program for new URM faculty in the areas of teaching, advising, research, service, and mastery of subject matter. New URM faculty were matched with URM mentors and received monthly virtual mentoring. Results demonstrated substantial growth in each area post-program, with statistically significant outcomes in the areas of teaching and advising. Faculty reported substantial benefits including sharing experiences, relationship building, lessened feelings of isolation, and increased knowledge of tenure and promotion expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The study assesses the prevalence of physical, psychological, sexual, and cyber forms of intimate partner violence (IPV) among female college students, and associated mental health and academic outcomes. Participants: Participants (n = 6,818) were randomly selected female students attending one of eight campuses of a University System in the Southwest. Their mean age was 25, and 45% identified as Hispanic/Latina. Data collection concluded in November of 2015. Methods: Students completed anonymous online surveys of behavioral-specific measures assessing victimization and potential impacts. Descriptive, bivariate, and multiple regression analyses were employed. Results: Since enrollment, 31% had experienced IPV. Significant correlations were observed between severity of IPV and extent of PTSD, depression, school disengagement, and academic impacts. Higher levels of psychological, sexual, and cyber violence were associated with increased PTSD and depression symptoms. Conclusion: IPV is a significant indicator of mental health and academic impacts, meriting attention from Institutions of Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: As students are expected to develop competency in professionalism and medical ethics, faculty are also expected to facilitate medical students' learning and understanding of these areas. One of the main challenges to success in this domain has been uncertainty of whether or not faculty know the content and the methods to teach and assess these competencies. Aim: We used the Objective Structured Teaching Exercise (OSTE) format as a faculty development tool to train and evaluate faculty on how to teach professionalism and medical ethics to students in clinical settings. Methods: The process for the design, development and implementation of OSTEs consisted of five phases: (1) performing a literature review and student needs assessment, (2) developing the OSTE cases and performance checklists, (3) recruiting and training of standardized students, (4) conducting a mock training session and (5) organizing faculty development workshops using OSTEs. Results: Twenty clinical faculty members participated in one of three half-day OSTE workshops offered. Faculty confidence and attitudes about teaching professionalism increased significantly ( p < 0.05) from before participating in the workshop to afterwards. Conclusions: Faculty feedback were positive stating that the OSTE scenarios were reflective of issues they generally encounter while teaching medical students, the information and skills they learned from the workshop are important to them as clinical educators, and that the information and skills will likely have an impact on the way they teach professionalism and ethics in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A letter to the editor is presented discussing the authors' work developing a computer-based clinical simulation for psychiatry education.