Professional Academic Liaison: An impactful program for onboarding and retention of nursing faculty.

Abstract: Recruitment into faculty roles may involve hiring nurse practitioners and other specialized clinicians into academic roles they feel unprepared due to limited teaching experience. Lack of formal role preparation, role stress, and role strain are challenges new faculty face. This article explores methods of creating resources and implementing supportive processes for new faculty during the initial mentoring (onboarding) period. The Professional Academic Liaison (PAL) program standardizes topics to be discussed between a new faculty hire and mentor pair, along with milestones for evaluation. The assigned PAL introduces the new hire to academic culture and provides ongoing support during the 1st year of employment and aims to improve new faculty satisfaction, confidence, competency, and retention.