Kathy Kelley named chair of AACP Council of Faculties

When Kathy Kelley, PhD, associate dean for assessment at The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, joined the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), she was a staff member who didn’t feel like she belonged in the existing membership categories: Council of Deans and Council of Faculties. As such, she joined the affinity groups that were focused on special interest areas aligned with her career goals. 

“I joined the assessment special interest group (SIG) because that’s where the people were doing the work that I wanted to do,” Dr. Kelley said. “By virtue of that, I got involved in different aspects of leading within the organization in those smaller areas.” 

Dr. Kelley became the chair of the assessment SIG and served on the Institutional Research Assessment Committee a special committee that works on assessment projects for the association. She also completed an AACP leadership program called Academic Leadership Fellows. Because of her involvement in these activities, in addition to her collaboration with BIG10 Academic Alliance, her peers recommended she take a more active role in the Council of Facilities – becoming the first member-at-large for the Council of Facilities and then asked to run for the chair position. 

“The timing of running for chair wasn’t great,” Dr. Kelley said. “We were getting a new dean, had self-study and a new strategic plan all during the term; and chair of Council of Facilities is a fairly big lift. But I had been looking at the makeup of the AACP board and didn’t see a lot of large research schools like us represented. I wanted people from all types of schools to value leadership within the organization and put their name forth to run for office. So, when the opportunity to run fell in my lap, I had to say yes.” 

In her role, Dr. Kelley is responsible for creating programming that benefits faculty, overseeing committees that can tackle initiatives for the group and leading a teachers’ seminar. She has a few goals for her time as chair and is excited about connecting members to the organization and clarifying that everyone, including staff, is welcome in the Council of Faculties. As such, she has charged a group with exploring how to create a more welcoming environment for staff at AACP. 

“We rely so heavily on staff in the work that we do,” Dr. Kelley explained. “We’ve had to become so specialized, whether it’s in student support, technology or outreach; we need people who possess that specific expertise. If we make conferences more accessible and welcoming to them, I think it will benefit all of us.” 

Dr. Kelley is supporting another special committee that is creating a toolkit to standardize the science content of the PharmD curriculum for student pharmacists. 

Dr. Kelley’s time as chair will culminate with a teaching seminar that the Council of Facilities is planning for 2025. 

“I’m really excited about our theme, ‘Back to basics,’” Dr. Kelley said. “It will not only ground new faculty but focus those of us who’ve been teaching for a while on the latest information on topics we need to know.”