Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
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Since the late 1980s faculty and staff at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) have actively sought to align their school's academic culture and promotional process with its mission of educational excellence and innovation. As one of the top 50 medical schools receiving NIH funds, MCW has well-established mechanisms to evaluate and recognize the scholarship of discovery. Understanding, evaluating, and recognizing the value of individuals engaged in the scholarship of teaching, however, required changes in individuals' beliefs and in the MCW's promotion processes and organizational infrastructure. ⋯ Retrospectively, this strategy was consistent with John Kotter's eight-step change model, which the authors apply as an organizing framework for this case report of educational evolution at the MCW. Through creating a guiding coalition, developing vision and strategy, generating short-term wins, and anchoring new approaches in the MCW's culture, the MCW has made substantive progress in recognizing and rewarding educational scholarship. Changing academic cultures to value education is itself an educational process, requiring persistence and the ability to teach others about educational scholarship and its associated criteria.