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Objective: To identify the benefits and consequences of having part-time faculty members in departments of pharmacy practice from the department chair's perspective., Methods: A stratified purposive sample of 12 pharmacy practice department chairs was selected. Eleven telephone interviews were conducted. Two investigators independently read interview notes and categorized and enumerated responses to determine major themes using content analysis. The investigators jointly reviewed the data and came to consensus on major themes., Results: Benefits of allowing full-time faculty members to reduce their position to part-time included faculty retention and improved individual faculty work/life balance. Consequences of allowing part-time faculty positions included the challenges of managing individual and departmental workloads, the risk of marginalizing part-time faculty members, and the challenges of promotion and tenure issues. All requests to switch to part-time status were faculty-driven and most were approved., Conclusions: There are a variety of benefits and consequences of having part-time faculty in pharmacy practice departments from the chair's perspective. Clear faculty and departmental expectations of part-time faculty members need to be established to ensure optimal success of this working arrangement.

Objective: To determine trends among departments of pharmacy practice regarding use of adjunct faculty members for classroom-based teaching and to assess departmental support provided to these faculty members., Methods: Chairs of pharmacy practice departments in US colleges and school of pharmacy were contacted by e-mail and asked to complete an 11-item electronic survey instrument., Results: Chair respondents reported an average of 5.7 adjunct faculty members hired to teach required courses and 1.8 adjunct faculty members hired to teach elective courses. Compensation averaged $108 per lecture hour and $1,257 per 1-credit-hour course. Twenty-five percent of the respondents expected to hire more adjunct faculty members to teach required courses in the upcoming year due to curricular changes, faculty hiring freezes, and the shortage of full-time faculty members. Only 7% of respondents reported that they provided a teaching mentor and 14% offered no support to their adjunct faculty members., Conclusions: Departments of pharmacy practice commonly use adjunct faculty members to teach required and elective courses. Given the pharmacy faculty shortage, this trend is expected to increase and may be an area for future faculty development.