Books for a Newly Minted Academic
December 3, 2020 3:15 PM Subscribe
My brother finished his PhD in the spring (computer science/machine learning), and is applying to faculty jobs. For Christmas, he asked for books about tenure or professorship or faculty topics, to help him prep for his new role. He specifically wanted Advice for New Faculty Members, but it's a couple decades old, so it's out of print and hard to find. What are good, thoughtful, possibly more recent books about transitioning to faculty life?
Doesn't need to be field-specific-- interacting with students, colleagues, handling workloads, and adjusting to the college and classroom environments are all good points to hit. Books relating to diversity and sensitivity of social issues on campus would also be great.
Doesn't need to be field-specific-- interacting with students, colleagues, handling workloads, and adjusting to the college and classroom environments are all good points to hit. Books relating to diversity and sensitivity of social issues on campus would also be great.
Best answer: At The Helm
Making the Right Moves
posted by Dashy at 3:23 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Making the Right Moves
posted by Dashy at 3:23 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Advice for New Faculty members is a classic and is absolutely still relevant. Getting a used copy would be worth it. There isn't really another book like it.
posted by medusa at 3:25 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by medusa at 3:25 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Also, two books for things he'll be doing a lot but may not have a lot of training in:
Crucial Conversations, and
On Writing
posted by Dashy at 3:48 PM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Crucial Conversations, and
On Writing
posted by Dashy at 3:48 PM on December 3, 2020 [3 favorites]
Fiction but perhaps appropriate—Stoner.
posted by Ideefixe at 4:28 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Ideefixe at 4:28 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: You're Hired! Now What? by Mohamed Noor
posted by Oliva Porphyria at 4:34 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Oliva Porphyria at 4:34 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
thriftbooks has good condition used ones for sale:
Advice for New Faculty Members - thriftbooks
posted by SageTrail at 4:48 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Advice for New Faculty Members - thriftbooks
posted by SageTrail at 4:48 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I'm sure many would disagree, but I read Tomorrow's Professor when job hunting and should have spent my time doing something else. There is some excellent advice, especially when it comes to how to structure a job talk and interview. But, every specific detail in it was irrelevant and misleading for my field and the kind of institutions I was applying to. Reading it did make me feel like I was preparing, which may have value.
I might consider books on pedagogy, especially those specific to CS and quantitative sciences, since knowing how to write a compelling teaching statement is probably the thing he's had the least exposure to and talking about teaching includes a lot of jargon that comes up in conversation and immediately signals that someone has actually spent some time exploring the topic. But, I haven't actually read any good ones myself.
posted by eotvos at 5:05 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
I might consider books on pedagogy, especially those specific to CS and quantitative sciences, since knowing how to write a compelling teaching statement is probably the thing he's had the least exposure to and talking about teaching includes a lot of jargon that comes up in conversation and immediately signals that someone has actually spent some time exploring the topic. But, I haven't actually read any good ones myself.
posted by eotvos at 5:05 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
Best answer: For tenure and faculty topics:
A subscription to Chronicle of Higher Ed
Richard Hamming's Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (republished in 2020!) The last chapter is a reprint of Hamming's talk "You and Your Research", which can be found online, and is just an astounding talk (either the video or the written version).
Cal Newport's Deep Work
For CS:
Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-4A Boxed Set 1st Edition
Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture
posted by at at 5:32 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
A subscription to Chronicle of Higher Ed
Richard Hamming's Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (republished in 2020!) The last chapter is a reprint of Hamming's talk "You and Your Research", which can be found online, and is just an astounding talk (either the video or the written version).
Cal Newport's Deep Work
For CS:
Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1-4A Boxed Set 1st Edition
Randy Pausch's The Last Lecture
posted by at at 5:32 PM on December 3, 2020 [2 favorites]
Not a book, but Faculty Diversity does exactly this via a series of webinars. It’s kinda pricey but I get it through my institution’s membership, worth trying with his grad school info, they have grad student resources too. Numerous colleagues use and like the course for new TT faculty.
https://www.facultydiversity.org/
More generally, lots of professors are bad managers (of student workers) because they never had “real” jobs to use as a model and weren’t trained to manage. No specific book rec here, Ask A Manager might be a good source.
posted by momus_window at 6:45 PM on December 3, 2020
https://www.facultydiversity.org/
More generally, lots of professors are bad managers (of student workers) because they never had “real” jobs to use as a model and weren’t trained to manage. No specific book rec here, Ask A Manager might be a good source.
posted by momus_window at 6:45 PM on December 3, 2020
I highly recommend Paul j. Silva, How to Write a Lot. The author is a psychologist, but the advice applies to almost every academic discipline (I'm a historian).
On teaching, James Lang's books are good—On Course might be a good place to start. Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do is also worthwhile. Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach has a corny title but it's better than it seems.
The latest edition of The Academic Job Search Handbook, which was one of my bibles on the job market 24 years ago, is also good, though perhaps too late for this application cycle. Paula Caplan, Lifting a Ton of Feathers, is an older but still (sadly) relevant book on sex discrimination and gendered expectations in academe, but a lot of her advice is also useful for male academics, especially those of us who want to change things.
There's also a lot on how higher education has been transformed from the 1980s to the present, but that's both highly depressing and not particularly useful for someone entering a faculty job; it's more useful when you reach the point of going for tenure (if you're one of the increasingly uncommon professors on the tenure track) or stepping into administration. Matt Reed's blog, Confessions of a Community College Dean (now hosted at Inside Higher Education), is a good way to keep up on issues like that; despite his focus on 2-year colleges, he has a lot to say about the profession in general.
And in closing, James Axtell's The Pleasures of Academe is a good reminder of the positive side of academic life. A lot of literature on academic life focuses on the downsides, because they exist but also because we're trained to be critical and suspicious. It's good to be reminded of the plus column, whether it's the joy of seeing students understand a difficult concept or the pleasure of being paid to contribute to the growth of human knowledge (and to read interesting books).
posted by brianogilvie at 7:42 PM on December 3, 2020
On teaching, James Lang's books are good—On Course might be a good place to start. Ken Bain's What the Best College Teachers Do is also worthwhile. Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach has a corny title but it's better than it seems.
The latest edition of The Academic Job Search Handbook, which was one of my bibles on the job market 24 years ago, is also good, though perhaps too late for this application cycle. Paula Caplan, Lifting a Ton of Feathers, is an older but still (sadly) relevant book on sex discrimination and gendered expectations in academe, but a lot of her advice is also useful for male academics, especially those of us who want to change things.
There's also a lot on how higher education has been transformed from the 1980s to the present, but that's both highly depressing and not particularly useful for someone entering a faculty job; it's more useful when you reach the point of going for tenure (if you're one of the increasingly uncommon professors on the tenure track) or stepping into administration. Matt Reed's blog, Confessions of a Community College Dean (now hosted at Inside Higher Education), is a good way to keep up on issues like that; despite his focus on 2-year colleges, he has a lot to say about the profession in general.
And in closing, James Axtell's The Pleasures of Academe is a good reminder of the positive side of academic life. A lot of literature on academic life focuses on the downsides, because they exist but also because we're trained to be critical and suspicious. It's good to be reminded of the plus column, whether it's the joy of seeing students understand a difficult concept or the pleasure of being paid to contribute to the growth of human knowledge (and to read interesting books).
posted by brianogilvie at 7:42 PM on December 3, 2020
I loved Kevin Gannon's new book, Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto and Written/Unwritten by Patricia Matthews. More immediately practically, I would also recommend What The Best College Teachers Do, and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching.
posted by ChuraChura at 1:11 PM on December 4, 2020
posted by ChuraChura at 1:11 PM on December 4, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by lalochezia at 3:19 PM on December 3, 2020 [1 favorite]