Brigham Young University
Faculty Center

 

Books: Advice for Faculty

Available for check-out at the Faculty Center  (call 2-7419 or come to 4450 WSC)


The Academic's Handbook. 3rd Edition (Table of Contents)

“This rather meaty volume, now in its third printing (the first edition debuted about 20 years ago) considers everything a budding academic should know about professorial life. It’s aimed primarily at newly-minted Ph.D.s who’ve just landed on the shores of academe, but it also speaks to graduate students ready to shove off. In this sense, it’s both a primer and a warning shot across the bow.”
--Mark Drozdowski, Adjunct Advocate (Amazon Editorial Review)

A. Leigh DeNeef and Craufurd D. Goodwin, Editors, Duke University, 2007.

(Amazon link)


The Compleat Academic: A Career Guide.  2nd Edition.  (Table of Contents)

Text explores the unwritten rules governing a career in academia. Provides practical advice to help new academics set the best course for a lasting and vibrant career. With humor and insight, contributing academics share lessons learned through their own experience. (Amazon Editorial Review)

Darley, John M., Mark P. Zanna, Henry L. Roediger III.    Washington, D.C.: American Psychology Association, 2003.

(Amazon link)


Coping with Faculty Stress: Survival Skills for Scholars  (Table of Contents)

Walter Gmelch, who has studied faculty stress for 15 years, says stress is a common feature of academic life, and not always a bad thing. Based on his extensive research, Gmelch outlines the chief forms of faculty stress and its major causes. He then provides concrete advice on what you can do about the negative stressors in your job and in other areas of your life. (back cover)

Survival Skills for Scholars provides you, the profesor or advanced graduate student working in a college or university setting, with practical suggestions for making the most of your academic career. These brief, readable guides will help you with skills that you are required to master as a college professor but may have never been taughter in graduate school. Using hands-on, jargon-free advice and examples, forms, lists, and suggestions for additional resources, experts on different aspects of academic life give invaluable tips on managing the day-to-day tasks of academia--effectively and efficiently. (Mitchell Allen, Managing Editor)

Gmelch, Walter H., Coping with Faculty Stress: Survival Skills for Scholars, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, Inc., 1993.

(Amazon link)


Faculty in New Jobs: A Guide to Settling In, Becoming Established, and Building Institutional Support  (Table of Contents)

 "Faculty in New Jobs offers a wealth on information and strategies for new faculty, faculty developers, senior colleagues, and administrators. The slice-of-life perspective on topics such as race, gender, and disciplines--along with suggestions for dealing with issues of stress, collegiality, mentoring, and time pressures--provides a panoramic take on new faculty life." (Mary Deane Sorcinelli, University of Massachusetts, Amherst)

Menges, Robert R. and Associates, Faculty in New Jobs. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.

(Amazon link)


Good Start: A Guidebook for New Faculty in Liberal Arts Colleges (Table of Contents)

"Good Start provides a great deal of useful information to young professors and those who would become professors. [Gerald Gibson] writes about selecting a college, securing a position, and getting oriented to the new job.  He demystifies and offers valuable suggestions about teaching, scholarship, service, and tenure.  He focuses on working within the academic organization, managing time and stress, and maintaining effectiveness. In short, he discusses everything a new faculty member needs to know about being a college professor that graduate school did not teach." (Foreword, Jerry G. Gaff)

Gibson, Gerald W. Good Start: A Guidebook for New Faculty in Liberal Arts Colleges. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 1992.

(Amazon link)


Handbook for College Teaching. 2nd Edition. (Table of Contents)

The Handbook for College Teaching is designed for individuals with limited teaching experience at the post-secondary level. The book provides basic information of practical value to instuctors of adults in universities, community colleges, and other adult education settings.

The Handbook for College Teaching is based on field tested research in the domains of teaching and learning. However, the focus of the book is on every day challenges faced by instructors who want to facilitate learning and growth on the part of their students. Much of the research evidence upon which the HANDBOOK FOR COLLEGE TEACHING is based is included in the extensive list of publications at the end of each chapter. (Amazon Editorial Review)

Miller, Wilbur R. and Miller, Marie, F. (1997). Handbook for College Teaching,2nd edition . PineCrest Publications

(Amazon link)


Life on The Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year (Table of Contents)

"With humor and pathos, Jim Lang tells a powerful story of his first year as a college teacher, offering a wealth of insights that will help graduate students and new faculty -- and maybe even not-so-new faculty -- learn to survive and flourish as good teachers. I came away with a renewed appreciation of the very real challenges and opportunities we face as educators." ( Ken Bain, author of What the Best College Teachers Do)

"May become the 'bible' for graduate students and new faculty. Lang's descriptions and analysis sparkle with warmth, humor, goodwill, and honesty. I found myself rooting for him, and viewed him as a mentor, turning the page looking for his very thoughtful advice. I would enthusiastically recommend this book to graduate students, adjunct professors, tenure-track and tenured faculty, and administrators." (Lynn Sacco, University of Tennessee)

Lang, James M.  Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year.  Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins, 2005.

(Amazon link)


Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Women's Guide to Surviving in the Academic World  (Table of Contents)

Women account for more than half of all undergraduate students in the United States and Canada, yet they make up only 10 per cent of faculty members at the level of full professor. What keeps women out of the highest levels of academia? Caplan is a veteran of the academic career struggle, and she explores this question with her own oberservations and those of many women she has interviewed, and with a strong backing of established research. She provides a clear assessment of what women who have embarked on an academic career, and those who are considering it, may expect. (Counci of Ontario Universities Committee on the Status of Women.

Caplan, Paula J.   (1995).  Lifting a Ton of Feathers: A Women's Guide to Surviving in the Academic World.  Toronto:  University of Toronto Press.

(Amazon link)


Making Time, Making Change: Avoiding Overload in College Teaching  (Table of Contents)

Lack of time may be the single most commonly experienced problem among American faculty. It is fair to say that the overwhelming majority of the roughly 400,000 full time faculty in American colleges and universities feel overloaded in their teaching lives; they perceive that they do not have time to do their basic faculty duties properly; and they believe that overload goes with the job. We complain yet we do not reflect on and evaluate our paradigms for how we use our time. Perhaps a pernicious norm has evolved: anyone not complaining about being overwhelmed is suspect. We act as if we have no choice. Einstein once remarked, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." A Lakota Sioux saying puts the idea in concrete terms, "When your horse is dead, the proper strategy is to dismount." When it comes to avoiding overload, many of us sit on our dead horses kicking them in the sides over and over again, insanely, wondering why we don't get anywhere. However, we do have choices about how we use our time. Einstein suggested a way to discover our choices when he further observed, "Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them." Essentially, that is the objective of this book: to elevate our awareness of how we use our time and how we might improve that use of time. We need to shift our perspective on using time from subject (a perspective from which we act naively) to object (a perspective on which we act intentionally). The tool that we will use to stimulate this shift in awareness comes from a vintage analysis of systems theory and research and focuses on managing the boundaries of our teaching selves better. In Making Time, Making Change, author Douglas Reimondo Robertson leads you on the road to a more rewarding, and less harried, teaching life! (Amazon Editorial Review)

Robertson, D. R.  (2003).  Making Time, Making Change:  Avoiding Overload in College Teaching.  Stillwater, Oklahoma:  New Forums Press.

(Amazon link)


Mentor in A Manual: Climbing the Academic Ladder to Tenure  (Table of Contents)

"This up-to-date manual for new assistant professors...offers 'advice, protection, caring' for young college and university faculty members as they seek to climb the academic ladder to tenure.  Based on years of personal experience in the halls of academe as well as on extensive conversations on the subject with faculty and administrators around the country, the book discusses both generic institutional criteria for making tenure and the practical 'politics'of following a professional path." (back cover)

Schoenfeld, A. Clay and Robert Magnan. Mentor in a Manual: Climbing the Academic Ladder to Tenure. Madison, WI: Magna Publications, 1992.

(Amazon link)


New Faculty: A Practical Guide for Academic Beginners (Table of Contents)

". . .a clearly structured, accessible, and informative primer targeted to full-time faculty members, particularly those in the early years of their appointment. It holds a distinctive place within the growing body of literature on faculty development . . . [T]he authors' ability to weave their attentiveness to the actual questions and concerns most frequently posed by new faculty members into the fabric of academic life contributes enormously to the credibility of the book. . . Many of us will be grateful for the effort."--Bernadette McNary-Zak, Rhodes College (Amazon Editorial Review)

Lucas, Christopher J. and John w. Murray, Jr.   (2002).  New Faculty: A Practical Guide for Academic Beginners.  New York:  Palgrave.

(Amazon link)


The New Professor's Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Science  (Table of Contents)

"This book is an ideal resource for everyone making the transition to new faculty member in engineering and science.  Based on published literature and on experiences of productive faculty, this book distills the voluminous literature on teaching and presents vital information on starting and conducting a research program. Refined through years of seminars with graduate students and faculty, contents include: student learning, course planning, conducting discussions, lecturing, developing exams, and working with TA's." (back cover)

Davidson, Cliff I. and Susan A. Ambrose. The New Professor's Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Science. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc., 1994.

(Amazon link)


Now What?: Readings on Surviving (and Even Enjoying) Your First Experience at College Teaching (Table of Contents)

Janes, Joseph and Hauer Soderholm, Diane. (1988). Now What? Readings on Surviving (and Even Enjoying) Your First Experience at College Teaching. Graduate School Center for Instructional Development Syracuse University. Copley Publishing Group, Littleton Massachusetts.

(Amazon link)