In question-and-answer form, Ms. Mentor advises academic women about issues they daren't discuss openly, such as: How does one really clamber onto the tenure track when the job market is so nasty, brutish, and small? Is there such a thing as the perfectly marketable dissertation topic? How does a meek young woman become a tiger of an authority figure in the classroom-and get stupendous teaching evaluations? How does one cope with sexual harassment, grandiosity, and bizarre behavior from entrenched colleagues? Ms. Mentor's readers will find answers to the secret queries they were afraid to ask anyone else. They'll discover what it really takes to get tenure; what to wear to academic occasions; when to snicker, when to hide, what to eat, and when to sue. They'll find out how to get firmly planted in the rich red earth of tenure. They'll learn why lunch is the most important meal of the day.

Ms. Mentor, that uniquely brilliant and irascible intellectual, is your all-knowing guide through the jungle that is academia today. In the last decade Ms. Mentor's mailbox has been filled to overflowing with thousands of plaintive epistles, rants, and gossipy screeds. A mere fraction has appeared in her celebrated monthly online and print Q&A columns for the Chronicle of Higher Education; her readers' colorful and rebellious ripostes have gone unpublished—until now. Hearing the call for a follow-up to the wildly successful Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia, Ms. Mentor now broadens her counsel to include academics of the male variety. Ms. Mentor knows all about foraging for jobs, about graduate school stars and serfs, and about mentors and underminers, backbiters and whiners. She answers burning questions: Am I too old, too working class, too perfect, too blonde? When should I reproduce? When do I speak up, laugh, and spill the secrets I've gathered? Do I really have to erase my own blackboard? Does academic sex have to be reptilian? From the ivory tower that affords her an unparalleled view of the academic landscape, Ms. Mentor dispenses her perfect wisdom to the huddled masses of professorial newbies, hardbitten oldies, and anxious midcareerists. She gives etiquette lessons to academic couples and the tough-talking low-down on adjunct positions. She tells you what to wear, how to make yourself popular, and how to decode academic language. She introduces you to characters you must know: Professor Pelvic, Dr. Iron Fist, Mr. Upstart Whelp, Dean Titan, Professor McShameless. In this volume Ms. Mentor once again shares her wide-ranging unexpurgated wisdom, giving tips on bizarre writing rituals, tenure diaries, and time management (Exploding Head Syndrome). She decodes department meetings and teaches you the tricks for getting stellar teaching evaluations. Raw, shocking, precise, clever, absurd—Ms. Mentor has it all.

Includes biographies of selected American women choral conductors.

Landing a job in today's academic job market is no easy feat. Is graduate school the answer? This informed and candid book provides anyone thinking about pursuing an advanced degree—and those who support them—with the inside scoop on what to expect in graduate school. Amanda I. Seligman helps potential students navigate graduate study—not just how to get in but how to succeed once you are there and what to expect when you leave. She weighs the pros and cons of attending graduate school against achieving a sustainable work-life balance and explains the application process, the culture of graduate school, and employment prospects for academics. This book guides readers through the ins and outs of graduate school, and no topic is off limits, including • qualifications and admission guidelines • financial aid and graduate stipends • meeting expectations and residency requirements • coursework, theses, and dissertations • degrees, jobs, and academic careers • tenure, research, and peer review • social life (will you still have one?) Written in a question-and-answer format, Is Graduate School Really for You? eliminates the guesswork. Whether you are considering applying to graduate school, already enrolled, or would simply like to know more about continuing your education, this is the book for you.

This new, revised, and expanded edition of the popular Academic’s Handbook is an essential guide for those planning or beginning an academic career. Faculty members, administrators, and professionals with experience at all levels of higher education offer candid, practical advice to help beginning academics understand matters including: — The different kinds of institutions of higher learning and expectations of faculty at each. — The advantages and disadvantages of teaching at four-year colleges instead of research universities. — The ins and outs of the job market. — Alternatives to tenure-track, research-oriented positions. — Salary and benefits. — The tenure system. — Pedagogy in both large lecture courses and small, discussion-based seminars. — The difficulties facing women and minorities within academia. — Corporations, foundations, and the federal government as potential sources of research funds. — The challenges of faculty mentoring. — The impact of technology on contemporary teaching and learning. — Different types of publishers and the publishing process at university presses. — The modern research library. — The structure of university governance. — The role of departments within the university. With the inclusion of eight new chapters, this edition of The Academic’s Handbook is designed to ease the transition from graduate school to a well-rounded and rewarding career. Contributors. Judith K. Argon, Louis J. Budd, Ronald R. Butters, Norman L. Christensen, Joel Colton, Paul L. Conway, John G. Cross, Fred E. Crossland, Cathy N. Davidson, A. Leigh DeNeef, Beth A. Eastlick, Matthew W. Finkin, Jerry G. Gaff, Edie N. Goldenberg, Craufurd D. Goodwin, Stanley M. Hauerwas, Deborah L. Jakubs, L. Gregory Jones, Nellie Y. McKay, Patrick M. Murphy, Elizabeth Studley Nathans, A. Kenneth Pye, Zachary B. Robbins, Anne Firor Scott, Sudhir Shetty, Samuel Schuman, Philip Stewart, Boyd R. Strain, Emily Toth, P. Aarne Vesilind, Judith S. White, Henry M. Wilbur, Ken Wissoker

Is a career as a professor the right choice for you? If you are a graduate student, how can you clear the hurdles successfully and position yourself for academic employment? What's the best way to prepare for a job interview, and how can you maximize your chances of landing a job that suits you? What happens if you don't receive an offer? How does the tenure process work, and how do faculty members cope with the multiple and conflicting day-to-day demands? With a perpetually tight job market in the traditional academic fields, the road to an academic career for many aspiring scholars will often be a rocky and frustrating one. Where can they turn for good, frank answers to their questions? Here, three distinguished scholars—with more than 75 years of combined experience—talk openly about what's good and what's not so good about academia, as a place to work and a way of life. Written as an informal conversation among colleagues, the book is packed with inside information—about finding a mentor, avoiding pitfalls when writing a dissertation, negotiating the job listings, and much more. The three authors' distinctive opinions and strategies offer the reader multiple perspectives on typical problems. With rare candor and insight, they talk about such tough issues as departmental politics, dual-career marriages, and sexual harassment. Rounding out the discussion are short essays that offer the "inside track" on financing graduate education, publishing the first book, and leaving academia for the corporate world. This helpful guide is for anyone who has ever wondered what the fascinating and challenging world of academia might hold in store. Part I - Becoming a Scholar * Deciding on an Academic Career * Entering Graduate School * The Mentor * Writing a Dissertation * Landing an Academic Job Part II - The Academic Profession * The Life of the Assistant Professor * Teaching and Research * Tenure * Competition in the University System and Outside Offers * The Personal Side of Academic Life

Moving chronologically from the colonial period to the present, this collection of seventeen biographical essays provides a window into the social, cultural, and geographic milieu of women's lives in the state. Within the context of the historical forces that have shaped Louisiana, the contributors look at ways in which the women they profile either abided by prevailing gender norms or negotiated new models of behavior for themselves and other women.Louisiana Womenconcludes with an essay that examines women's active responses to problems that emerged in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The women whose absorbing life stories are collected here include Marie Therese Coincoin, who was born a slave but later became a successful entrepreneur, and Oretha Castle Haley, civil rights activist and leader of the New Orleans chapter of CORE. From such well-known figures as author Kate Chopin and Voudou priestess Marie Laveau, to lesser known women such as Cajun musician Cleoma Breaux Falcon, this volume reveals a compelling cross section of historical figures. The women profiled vary by race, class, political affiliation, and religious persuasion, but they all share an unusual grit and determination that allowed them to turn trying circumstances into opportunity. Lively yet rigorous, these essays introduce readers to the courageous, dedicated, and inventive women who have been an essential part of Louisiana's history. Historical figures included: Marie Th?r?se Coincoin The Baroness Pontalba Marie Laveau Sarah Katherine (Kate) Stone Eliza Jane Nicholson Kate Chopin Grace King Louisa Williams Robinson, Her Daughters, and Her Granddaughters Clementine Hunter Dorothy Dix True Methodist Women Cleoma Breaux Falcon Caroline Dormon Mary Land Rowena Spencer Oretha Castle Haley Louisiana Women and Hurricane Katrina

“What makes the modern university different from any other corporation?” asked Columbia’s Andrew Delbanco recently in the New York Times. “There is more and more reason to think: less and less,” he answered. In this provocative book, Frank Donoghue shows how this growing corporate culture of higher education threatens its most fundamental values by erasing one of its defining features: the tenured professor. Taking a clear-eyed look at American higher education over the last twenty years, Donoghue outlines a web of forces—social, political, and institutional—dismantling the professoriate. Today, fewer than 30 percent of college and university teachers are tenured or on tenure tracks, and signs point to a future where professors will disappear. Why? What will universities look like without professors? Who will teach? Why should it matter? The fate of the professor, Donoghue shows, has always been tied to that of the liberal arts —with the humanities at its core. The rise to prominence of the American university has been defined by the strength of the humanities and by the central role of the autonomous, tenured professor who can be both scholar and teacher. Yet in today’s market-driven, rank- and ratings-obsessed world of higher education, corporate logic prevails: faculties are to be managed for optimal efficiency, productivity, and competitive advantage; casual armies of adjuncts and graduate students now fill the demand for teachers. Bypassing the distractions of the culture wars and other “crises,” Donoghue sheds light on the structural changes in higher education—the rise of community colleges and for-profit universities, the frenzied pursuit of prestige everywhere, the brutally competitive realities facing new Ph.D.s —that threaten the survival of professors as we’ve known them. There are no quick fixes in The Last Professors; rather, Donoghue offers his fellow teachers and scholars an essential field guide to making their way in a world that no longer has room for their dreams. First published in 2008, "The Last Professors" have largely had its arguments borne out in the interim, as the percentage of courses taught by tenured professors continues to dwindle. This new edition includes a substantial Preface that elaborates on recent developments and offers tough but productive analysis that will be crucial for today's academics to heed.

In this new volume, editors Lynn H. Collins, Joan C. Chrisler, and Kathryn Quina provide a wealth of information about institutional pitfalls in higher education professions, advice on how to handle difficult situations, and encouragement to those who persevere in their pursuit of an academic career.

How do definitions of literacy in the academy, and the pedagogies that reinforce such definitions, influence and shape our identities as teachers, scholars, and students? The contributors gathered here reflect on those moments when the dominant cultural and institutional definitions of our identities conflict with our other identities, shaped by class, race, gender, sexual orientation, location, or other cultural factors. These writers explore the struggle, identify the sources of conflict, and discuss how they respond personally to such tensions in their scholarship, teaching, and administration. They also illustrate how writing helps them and their students compose alternative identities that may allow the connection of professional identities with internal desires and senses of self. They emphasize how identity comes into play in education and literacy and how institutional and cultural power is reinforced in the pedagogies and values of the writing classroom and writing profession.