Faculty Productivity


Book Description

Academic life at the beginning of the 21st century will bring changes to the role of the professorate, how they are rewarded and what their responsibilities are. This book focuses on topics that pertain to the reform of faculty work, and offers disparate opinions on the nature of the work.




How Writing Faculty Write


Book Description

In How Writing Faculty Write, Christine Tulley examines the composing processes of fifteen faculty leaders in the field of rhetoric and writing, revealing through in-depth interviews how each scholar develops ideas, conducts research, drafts and revises a manuscript, and pursues publication. The book shows how productive writing faculty draw on their disciplinary knowledge to adopt attitudes and strategies that not only increase their chances of successful publication but also cultivate writing habits that sustain them over the course of their academic careers. The diverse interviews present opportunities for students and teachers to extrapolate from the personal experience of established scholars to their own writing and professional lives. Tulley illuminates a long-unstudied corner of the discipline: the writing habits of theorists, researchers, and teachers of writing. Her interviewees speak candidly about overcoming difficulties in their writing processes on a daily basis, using strategies for getting started and restarted, avoiding writer’s block, finding and using small moments of time, and connecting their writing processes to their teaching. How Writing Faculty Write will be of significant interest to students and scholars across the spectrum—graduate students entering the discipline, new faculty and novice scholars thinking about their writing lives, mid-level and senior faculty curious about how scholars research and write, historians of rhetoric and composition, and metadisciplinary scholars.




Understanding Faculty Productivity


Book Description

"An invaluable resource for any college and university striving tomeet the National Cost Commission's call to make what colleges doand what it costs more 'transparent' to the public." --Jacqueline E. King, director, federal policy analysis, AmericanCouncil on Education Defining and measuring faculty productivity are among the mostcentral issues for quality and accountability in higher education.Known for assembling some of the most authoritative research onfaculty productivity--and for analyzing its impact on academic andinstitutional accountability--Michael F. Middaugh presents thiscomprehensive volume to help campus professionals build greateraccountability for students, parents, foundations, governmentalorganizations, and other concerned constituents. Middaugh firstdraws from a research study funded by TIAA-CREF's CooperativeResearch Grant Program and the Fund for Postsecondary Educationwithin the U.S. Department of Education. He then provides a newframework for analyzing faculty efficiency and emphasizes how theresults of faculty work can become the best indicators ofproductivity. He also applies the joint study findings to the taskof developing benchmarks for faculty productivity. Practitionersfrom any type of campus will find a rich array of data, valuablerecommendations, and relevant examples.




Productivity in Higher Education


Book Description

How do the benefits of higher education compare with its costs, and how does this comparison vary across individuals and institutions? These questions are fundamental to quantifying the productivity of the education sector. The studies in Productivity in Higher Education use rich and novel administrative data, modern econometric methods, and careful institutional analysis to explore productivity issues. The authors examine the returns to undergraduate education, differences in costs by major, the productivity of for-profit schools, the productivity of various types of faculty and of outcomes, the effects of online education on the higher education market, and the ways in which the productivity of different institutions responds to market forces. The analyses recognize five key challenges to assessing productivity in higher education: the potential for multiple student outcomes in terms of skills, earnings, invention, and employment; the fact that colleges and universities are “multiproduct” firms that conduct varied activities across many domains; the fact that students select which school to attend based in part on their aptitude; the difficulty of attributing outcomes to individual institutions when students attend more than one; and the possibility that some of the benefits of higher education may arise from the system as a whole rather than from a single institution. The findings and the approaches illustrated can facilitate decision-making processes in higher education.




The Professor Is In


Book 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.




The Peak Performing Professor


Book Description

Drawing on research from the fields of neuroscience, faculty development, work productivity, positive psychology, and resilience, The Peak Performing Professor is filled with techniques, strategies, and practical tools for managing the complexities of academic life while maximizing professional potential. This much-needed resource reveals the four skill sets (PACE) that enhance peak performance and shows faculty step-by-step how to: Power their work and lives with purpose and meaning. Align all of their activities with that purpose. Connect with mutually helpful colleagues and intimates. Energize themselves to thrive in this interesting and engaging career. To help develop these essential skills, the book contains exercises that can help faculty hone their abilities to anchor their work, roles, and use of time in their most deeply held values; to integrate their personal and professional lives into a seamless whole; to experience more work-life balance; and, ultimately, to create a legacy of a life well-lived. Administrators will also find the book a useful tool for guiding their faculty to produce, stay engaged, and experience job satisfaction. "The first time I saw Susan present her Pyramid of Power model, I knew I needed to learn more. This book provides both the ideas and the practical advice that can help faculty and faculty developers make our lives more effective and more livable." L. Dee Fink, author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences "An amazing book essential reading for every faculty member. The integration of sound scholarship and practical advice is extraordinary. This book will power faculty workshops and faculty lives!" Barbara Walvoord, professor emerita, University of Notre Dame; author of Effective Grading




Advice for New Faculty Members


Book Description

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.




Unraveling Faculty Burnout


Book Description

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




Agile Faculty


Book Description

Digital tools have long been a transformative part of academia, enhancing the classroom and changing the way we teach. Yet there is a way that academia may be able to benefit more from the digital revolution: by adopting the project management techniques used by software developers. Agile work strategies are a staple of the software development world, developed out of the need to be flexible and responsive to fast-paced change at times when “business as usual” could not work. These techniques call for breaking projects into phases and short-term goals, managing assignments collectively, and tracking progress openly. Agile Faculty is a comprehensive roadmap for scholars who want to incorporate Agile practices into all aspects of their academic careers, be it research, service, or teaching. Rebecca Pope-Ruark covers the basic principles of Scrum, one of the most widely used models, and then through individual chapters shows how to apply that framework to everything from individual research to running faculty committees to overseeing student class work. Practical and forward-thinking, Agile Faculty will help readers not only manage their time and projects but also foster productivity, balance, and personal and professional growth.




Professors as Writers


Book Description

Here is a proven book to help scholars master writing as a productive, enjoyable, and successful experience -- Author, Robert Boice, prepared this self-help manual for professors who want to write more productively, painlessly, and successfully. It reflects the author's two decades of experiences and research with professors as writers -- by compressing a lot of experience into a brief, programmatic framework. Like the actual sessions and workshops in which the author works with writers, this book admonishes and reassures. In the innovative book lies the path for sustained, highly productive scholarly writing!