Synopses & Reviews
Successfully launching an academic career in the challenging environment of higher education today is apt to require more explicit preparation than the informal socialization typically afforded in graduate school. As a faculty novice soon discovers, job success requires balancing multiple demands on ones time and energy.
New Faculty offers a useful compendium of “survival” advice for the faculty newcomer on a variety of subjects:practical tips on classroom teaching, student performance evaluation, detailed advice on grant-writing, student advising, professional service, and publishing. Beginning faculty members—and possibly their more experienced colleagues as well—will find this lively guidebook both informative and thought-provoking.
Review
"Any book of advice is subject to the reader's experience. Its worth is measured by the degree to which the reader agrees with the authors' suggestions. Lucas and Murry offer advice that most seasoned faculty would agree with. The authors believe that faculty can couple good judgment with their sound advice for the improvement of the academic enterprise. This is a strong and hopeful work." --Robert B. Young, Professor and Chair, Counseling & Higher Education, Ohio University
". . .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
About the Author
Christopher J. Lucas is Professor of Higher Education and Policy Studies at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. He is the author of
American Higher Education,
Crisis in the Academy and
Teacher Education in America.
John W. Murry Jr. is Associate Professor of Higher Education and Associate Dean for Research, Graduate Studies and Faculty Development, College of Education and Health Professions, at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville.
Table of Contents
I: Preliminary Considerations * Institutional Environment and the Academic Community * Faculty Mentoring *
II: Faculty Work Activities * Teaching: Lectures and Discussion * Active Learning and Other Instructional Management Issues * Advising Students * Getting Published * The Art of Grantsmanship * Faculty Service * Legal Issues and the Professorate * Concluding Considerations * Further Thoughts