Empowering University Professors: A Case Study in Educational Needs Assessment

Background and Objective: Educational needs assessment of faculty members and their subsequent empowerment are among the top priorities in universities. In order to bring about organizational transformation in the field of education, a long-term development program for members of the academic staff, called the Strategic Education Leadership Empowerment Program )Mini-MBA(, will be designed, implemented, and evaluated within the higher education health sector. The aim of this article is to present the results of the first step of this program, namely targeted needs assessment. Methodology: This study was conducted using a descriptive-cross-sectional method in the period from December 2022 to February 2023. The focus was on enhancing productivity in executive management and creating a broad and rich communication network of effective experiences among senior managers. During this period, a questionnaire with 58 items was utilized. Findings: The participants’ age ranged from 28 to 67 years, the highest and lowest years of service were 1 and 36, respectively. Managers of research and development centers were the most responsive to the questionnaire, with 94.9% of academic staff members answering the questionnaire. In terms of gender, the majority of participants were male )60.2%(, while the remaining 39.8% were female. In the area of familiarity with educational regulations, the highest priority for all senior university managers was the regulations for the promotion of academic staff )professorial board( in universities. Conclusion: Improving human resource productivity requires enhancing quality and managerial capabilities. ith reference to the survey results, we can prioritize the empowerment program for senior educational managers at the country’s medical universities in their specific areas of interest. This includes becoming familiar with the new promotion regulations, exploring innovative models in higher education systems, emphasizing value creation, and fostering superior ideation in the field of medical sciences education. Through this approach,senior managers have the opportunity to apply their acquired knowledge and transfer it to the actual educational environment, thereby enabling the realization of educational objectives. The empowerment program for senior managers makes it easier to achieve the goals outlined in the comprehensive efficiency management program in the medical education system. Keywords: Need assessment, Empowerment, Medical Science