Working Effectively with Faculty: Guidebook for Higher Education Staff and Managers brings academic culture and staff challenges to life. Susan Christy's insights into staff point-of-view and faculty behavior set the stage. The book's focus is strategies and best practices for working successfully with faculty and getting things done in academia. The "team of two" (faculty and staff) is critical to build a productive and civil department! Readers recommend this book for faculty, staff and department chairs and deans. Susan Christy, Ph.D. was a tenured psychology professor and then consultant and trainer for thousands of university administrators, faculty, staff and managers.

Working with Problem Faculty When asked to name their number one concern and problem, department leaders overwhelmingly said that it was dealing with difficult people. Now R. Kent Crookston draws on the wisdom of seasoned department chairs, the academic literature, and his own experience as a department head and dean to shed new light on this perennial problem. Working with Problem Faculty outlines a practical six-step process that aims at improving an entire department and charts a clear course for dealing with problem faculty by Clarifying values and expectations Following policy Building trust with colleagues Evaluating yourself and your perceptions Listening Taking appropriate action By following these six steps, department chairs are able to challenge problem faculty with consideration, confidence, and effectiveness. "Anyone seeking practical help in dealing with difficult people will appreciate this book. Using relevant examples, Crookston describes a six-step process for managing people who might appear to be unmanageable." Mary Lou Higgerson, vice president for academic affairs emeritus, Baldwin Wallace University "Crookston has done his homework. After careful research and decades of personal experience Dr. Crookston shares a practical, insightful, and crucial handbook for addressing the most formidable challenge all leaders face. And best of all, he doesn't just advise on how to act when things go wrong, he gives proactive guidance to ensure that things go right." Joseph Grenny, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Change Anything and Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High

Shows how changes in higher education are transforming the careers of faculty, and provides a model that makes it possible for all faculty to be in a position to do their best.

What makes a great teacher great? Who are the professors students remember long after graduation? This book, the conclusion of a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers in a wide variety of fields and universities, offers valuable answers for all educators. The short answer is—it’s not what teachers do, it’s what they understand. Lesson plans and lecture notes matter less than the special way teachers comprehend the subject and value human learning. Whether historians or physicists, in El Paso or St. Paul, the best teachers know their subjects inside and out—but they also know how to engage and challenge students and to provoke impassioned responses. Most of all, they believe two things fervently: that teaching matters and that students can learn. In stories both humorous and touching, Ken Bain describes examples of ingenuity and compassion, of students’ discoveries of new ideas and the depth of their own potential. What the Best College Teachers Do is a treasure trove of insight and inspiration for first-year teachers and seasoned educators.

Nihil nimus is a guide to the start of a successful academic career. As its title suggests (nothing in excess), it advocates moderation in ways of working.--From publisher description.

The definitive career guide for grad students, adjuncts, post-docs and anyone else eager to get tenure or turn their Ph.D. into their ideal job Each year tens of thousands of students will, after years of hard work and enormous amounts of money, earn their Ph.D. And each year only a small percentage of them will land a job that justifies and rewards their investment. For every comfortably tenured professor or well-paid former academic, there are countless underpaid and overworked adjuncts, and many more who simply give up in frustration. Those who do make it share an important asset that separates them from the pack: they have a plan. They understand exactly what they need to do to set themselves up for success. They know what really moves the needle in academic job searches, how to avoid the all-too-common mistakes that sink so many of their peers, and how to decide when to point their Ph.D. toward other, non-academic options. Karen Kelsky has made it her mission to help readers join the select few who get the most out of their Ph.D. As a former tenured professor and department head who oversaw numerous academic job searches, she knows from experience exactly what gets an academic applicant a job. And as the creator of the popular and widely respected advice site The Professor is In, she has helped countless Ph.D.’s turn themselves into stronger applicants and land their dream careers. Now, for the first time ever, Karen has poured all her best advice into a single handy guide that addresses the most important issues facing any Ph.D., including: -When, where, and what to publish -Writing a foolproof grant application -Cultivating references and crafting the perfect CV -Acing the job talk and campus interview -Avoiding the adjunct trap -Making the leap to nonacademic work, when the time is right The Professor Is In addresses all of these issues, and many more.

A timely book about assessing, coping with, and mitigating burnout in higher education. Faculty often talk about how busy, overwhelmed, and stressed they are. These qualities are seen as badges of honor in a capitalist culture that values productivity above all else. But for many women in higher education, exhaustion and stress go far deeper than end-of-the-semester malaise. Burnout, a mental health syndrome caused by chronic workplace stress, is endemic to higher education in a patriarchal, productivity-obsessed culture. In this unique book for women in higher education, Rebecca Pope-Ruark, PhD, draws from her own burnout experience, as well as collected stories of faculty in various roles and career stages, interviews with coaches and educational developers, and extensive secondary research to address and mitigate burnout. Pope-Ruark lays out four pillars of burnout resilience for faculty members: purpose, compassion, connection, and balance. Each chapter contains relatable stories, reflective opportunities and exercises, and advice from women in higher education. Blending memoir, key research, and reflection opportunities, Pope-Ruark helps faculty not only address burnout personally but also use the tools in this book to eradicate the systemic conditions that cause it in the first place. As burnout becomes more visible, we can destigmatize it by acknowledging that women are not unraveling; instead, women in higher education are reckoning with the productivity cult embedded in our institutions, recognizing how it shapes their understanding and approach to faculty work, and learning how they can remedy it for themselves, their peers, and women faculty in the future. Contributors: Lee Skallerup Bessette, Cynthia Ganote, Emily O. Gravett, Hillary Hutchinson, Tiffany D. Johnson, Bridget Lepore, Jennifer Marlow, Sharon Michler, Marie Moeller, Valerie Murrenus Pilmaier, Catherine Ross, Kristi Rudenga, Katherine Segal, Kryss Shane, Jennifer Snodgrass, Lindsay Steiner, Kristi Verbeke

A practical, accessible handbook for chairing a department. Over the course of a typical academic career, most faculty will serve at least one term as chair of a department. It's a leadership and service role that's at the very heart of faculty satisfaction and student success, yet few receive any training on how to do the job. How to Chair a Department is a practical, accessible handbook for new and prospective chairs, providing both principles and practices for effective departmental leadership. Based on his dozen years of chairing departments, Kevin Dettmar provides invaluable advice on: • hiring tenure-track and visiting faculty • mentoring faculty colleagues at every stage of their careers • working with staff and other departmental administrators • managing department resources and budgets • meeting the needs of students • dealing with stress and conflict • connecting the department to the larger university or college as a whole • overseeing the department's curricula • maintaining a scholarly or creative profile • preparing for career moves after chairing a department How to Chair a Department demystifies this important faculty position and argues that the role of chair, though sometimes seen as a burden, can prove to be a genuine opportunity for personal and professional growth.

Joining the Mission is a helpful guide for new (and experienced) faculty at religious colleges and universities. Susan VanZanten here provides an orientation to the world of Christian higher education and an introduction to the academic profession of teaching, scholarship, and service, with a special emphasis on opportunities and challenges common to mission-driven institutions. From designing a syllabus to dealing with problem students, from working with committees to achieving a balanced life, VanZanten s guidebook will help faculty across the disciplines Art to Zoology and every subject between understand better what it means to pursue faithfully a vocation as professor. Susan VanZanten s Joining the Mission is an exceptional resource for all faculty members at Christian colleges and universities. While it is a very practical guide to teaching at a university, the book also helps the reader understand and wrestle with the nuances of what it means to be a faculty member at a mission-driven institution. I appreciate VanZanten s contribution to articulating why mission is important at our institutions, why we care about it so much, and how we can better accomplish it. Thomas Cedel President, Concordia University Texas

John A. Centra provides faculty members, administrators, and faculty development specialists with the up-to-date approaches they need to evaluate and improve teaching. He underscores the importance of active methods of teaching and the need to evaluate those methods in less traditional ways. He discusses the value and proper use of self-reports and portfolios, and examines better ways to involve colleagues in evaluating and improving teaching.