Promoting teaching-focused faculty in biomedical engineering: Best practices
February 27, 2025 — Brenda Ogle, Professor and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota teamed up with collaborators across the country to publish a report in Biomedical Engineering Education.
Called, ”Promoting Teaching-Focused Faculty in Biomedical Engineering: Education Summit Highlights Best Practices for Professional Development,” the report synthesizes existing literature and insights from the biomedical engineering community. In particular, it draws from the 2024 BME Education Summit hosted by the Biomedical Engineering Society’s Council of Chairs.
Ogle co-authored the article with Jennifer Amos of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Julie Hasenwinkel of Syracuse University.
Challenges and recommendations
The authors highlight the unique challenges that teaching-focused faculty face, including vague promotional pathways, limited professional development opportunities, evolving educational needs, and a lack of standardized promotion processes and pathways. These themes are supported in literature for fields outside of biomedical engineering.
To address these issues, the paper offers several recommendations, including three future actions for the biomedical engineering community:
- Charge the Council of Chairs to survey departments and form a working group to determine common best practices and sharing of procedures and policies surrounding hiring, mentoring, and promoting teaching faculty.
- Encourage program chair support of teaching faculty by supporting their professional development, sending them to conferences, and encouraging their participation in professional societies, workshops, etc. to enhance their skills and promote a sense of community and belonging.
- Encourage the Council of Chairs to continue the discussion on topics related to mentoring and promotion of faculty for all faculty types.
Recommendations are essential to promoting and growing this community of educators and ultimately advancing the biomedical engineering field.