• Economic Development/Workforce Demand
  

  Graduates of the Clinical Laboratory Sciences program are in high demand regionally and nationally, for three reasons. The first is that in order to work in a medical laboratory within the state of Florida, a person must have a license and be certified by a national certification body. The second reason is that a national shortage has been in effect for a number of years, and the planned retirement of many seasoned laboratory scientists has maintained the shortage. The third reason is that the nearest accredited institutions that offer a bachelor degree CLS program are in Hattiesburg, Mississippi and Orlando, Florida. The impact for the graduate is excellent opportunity for employment. For the 2010 graduates of the program, 23 of the 26 individuals who took the certification examination are working in a clinical laboratory. For the 2011 graduates, 24 of the 26 individuals who took the exam are working in a clinical laboratory. So far, in 2012, 19 of the 23 individuals who took the exam are either working in a clinical laboratory or pursuing a graduate degree. Nine more have yet to graduate, and the expectation is employment for all of those. The Clinical Laboratory Sciences program is affiliated with 19 institutions for student internships, and affiliates join the program because of their interest in hiring graduates. New graduates command starting salaries between $35,000 to $50,000 per year depending on location and hours.

• Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
  

  This degree qualifies as a STEM discipline.

• Accreditation Requirements
  

  The program is accredited by the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences, and is currently in the 7 year accreditation process. The accrediting agency requires that the instructor to student ratio be adequate to achieve the stated program goals. It is for this purpose that the laboratory director position was originally created. The site visit from the accrediting agency will be in the spring of 2014, the self study is due October 2013.

• Niche programs with growth potential
  

  The program has grown from a niche program in 2008 -2009 to a robust program; it is the largest CLS program in Florida. It has an enrollment cap due to the limiting number of students who can be seated at the clinical internship portion of the curriculum, which is 2 semesters long. There is growth potential if the program has the resources to recruit and maintain more clinical sites.

In the past 5 years, the program enrollment has increased 123% and the number of clinical affiliates has increased 200%, and spans the distance from Biloxi, Mississippi to Gainesville, Florida. At the same time, the number of full time faculty members has remained the same, two full time faculty members, one clinical coordinator and one laboratory director. The program has requested a new faculty line for the past few years, but has never been funded, in spite of its growth, workforce demand, and reputation. This proposal upgrades the current laboratory director position to instructor status. The funds from the laboratory manager will be used as the base of support for the line. In recurring dollars, the margin of difference between the former staff line and the reconfigured staff line is $20,000.

Finding and retaining quality credentialed faculty members in Clinical Laboratory Sciences is a challenge, since most CLS graduates do not pursue a masters or doctoral degree in the discipline. Over the past 5 years, we have hired 8 different adjuncts to teach courses for us, with some of them choosing to go elsewhere due to low salary, and some of them who were determined to be not suitable for rehire. We have retained 2 quality adjuncts, but they are not qualified to teach all of the courses. A third faculty member will relieve this instability.

Evidence of the quality of the program are its strong reputation within the community, including its recognized affiliation with 19 clinical affiliates, its high pass rate on the board certification examinations (88% in 2011), and its high job placement of graduates. The Clinical Laboratory Sciences Program has undergone tremendous growth in the past few years, with an overall enrollment increase of 123%. The increase has been sustained. The reputation of the program extends beyond the UWF community; among the 2013 prospective graduates, 41% have a previous bachelors degree, most of them from another institution. The median age of the CLS students is 24.5 years. We are proud of our diversity. 38% of the 2013 graduates of the program are minorities. The CLS program has an excellent graduation rate.

We are asking for a Lab Manager/Instructor line to be authorized. Sherm Buonemelli, former lab manager, retired precipitously in December. We have found a qualified individual to replace him but wish to ramp up instructional responsibilities associated with the line. As such, the additional resources requested do not represent a full line but the upgrade needed to make the line formally assigned as an Instructor.

Six contact hours teaching per semester within the CLS curriculum. Subjects include but are not limited to safety, professional skills, phlebotomy, computer skills and laboratory techniques. Specific courses and/or laboratory sections will be assigned. Six contact hours of laboratory management per semester. The selected candidate will be required to assist in the laboratory instruction of the senior level undergraduate courses in Hematology, Diagnostic Microbiology, Hemostasis & Thrombosis, Medical Microbiology, Immunohematology, Clinical Chemistry I and II, Serology, Urinalysis & Body Fluids and Molecular Diagnostics. The candidate will be responsible for upkeep and maintenance of the CLS student clinical laboratory, inventory management, purchasing, preparation of laboratory manuals and laboratory practical exams, maintenance of microbiologic stock cultures, organization of laboratory materials such as parasitology and hematology abnormal slides, computer software, et cetera. The candidate will work with the other CLS faculty to prepare laboratory materials and assist in supervision of all CLS lab sections. The candidate will assist the other faculty members in identifying the need to purchase laboratory equipment, instruments, supplies and other functions related to accreditation, licensure, clinical site affiliations, and so forth. Student advising and remediation will be assigned as needed. The candidate is expected to serve on the Safety Committee, Student Selection committee, CLS Advisory committee, and other committees as deemed appropriate by the program director. There is no research requirement for this position. The CLS program is accredited by the National Accrediting Agency for Clinical Laboratory Sciences. The candidate is expected to make significant contributions to the accreditation process, and to uphold the standards of the accrediting agency.

The laboratory manager is responsible to teach certain topics in the CLS curriculum, including safety and blood collection, to set up all CLS laboratories, to assist with all of the laboratories, to maintain equipment and laboratory manuals, to do student recruiting, and be the purchasing and inventory agent. Currently this position has no hours assigned as credit earning. The program currently hires adjuncts to teach several courses and laboratory sections. The proposed change to this position will add a half time teaching responsibility to the role of the laboratory manager, thereby upgrading the position.

NOT APPLICABLE

NOT APPLICABLE

* Does not include non-degree specializations (indicated with a † above)

# of FTE Faculty by Tenure Status
	Fall 2008	Fall 2009	Fall 2010	Fall 2011	Fall 2012
Tenure & Tenure Earning	2.0	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
Non-Tenure Earning	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0	2.0

‡ Data not yet available for this term

# (%) of low enrollment courses (undergrad: <20, grad: <15)
	10/11	11/12	12/13
Undergraduate	0 ( 0.0%)	0 ( 0.0%)	0 ( 0.0%)
Graduate	0 ( 0.0%)	0 ( 0.0%)	0 ( 0.0%)

Average Class Size
	Fall 2010					Fall 2011					Fall 2012
	Reg	Adj	TA	ESC	All	Reg	Adj	TA	ESC	All	Reg	Adj	TA	ESC	All
Lower	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Upper	35.0	34.3	0.0	0.0	34.6	32.0	32.5	0.0	0.0	32.2	27.0	28.5	0.0	0.0	28.2
Graduate	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0

Percent of student credit hours taught by instructor type
	10/11				11/12				12/13
	Reg	Adj	TA	ESC	Reg	Adj	TA	ESC	Reg	Adj	TA	ESC
Lower	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Upper	59.6%	40.4%	0.0%	0.0%	54.3%	45.7%	0.0%	0.0%	56.1%	43.9%	0.0%	0.0%
Graduate	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Total	59.6%	40.4%	0.0%	0.0%	54.3%	45.7%	0.0%	0.0%	56.1%	43.9%	0.0%	0.0%