From Turnover to Transition: Lived Experiences of Former Pharmacy Faculty Who Left Academia

OBJECTIVE: To explore how former faculty describe their academic work experiences and various circumstances that led to their departure from academia. METHODS: A sample of former pharmacy faculty with at least three years of academic experience who had left academia within the prior four years participated in semi-structured interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using team-based thematic analysis informed by phenomenological principles. Strategies to enhance rigor included investigator triangulation, reflexivity, and member checking. Data saturation was achieved following sixteen interviews of faculty diverse in type of institution formerly employed, geographic region, and several demographic characteristics. RESULTS: Sixteen participants described their academic work lives and career transitions. Coding and analysis of data resulted in the identification of eight major themes comprising thirty-one subthemes, reflecting cumulative workload strain, perceived rigidity and loss of autonomy, administrative instability, limited advancement opportunities, mentorship gaps, and evolving perceptions of teaching and students. Participants often described these experiences as interconnected rather than isolated factors. CONCLUSION: Former pharmacy faculty described leaving academia as the result of complex interactions among organizational context, professional identity, and personal priorities. For some, departure reflected disengagement and misalignment; for others, it represented an intentional, self-efficacious career transition. Understanding this spectrum may help organizations both improve academic environments, therefore quality staff retention, and more thoughtfully support faculty career evolution.