Professional ethics require continuous self-improvement of professors, through writing, reading, and learning: no less than for students. Promoting excellence in scholarship, mentoring students in their research, and effectively teaching, are vital elements in our professional and personal growth. However, any one of these could be a full-time job in itself. To excel in each role, it is essential for faculty members to reflect daily on our work. What is the role of comparisons, in this reflection? Though our colleagues’ successes may suggest to us possibilities in our own work that we didn’t know existed, there is a danger that our neighbor’s “flowers” will always seem more beautiful than our own. We should let comparisons with others suggest new approaches to our goals, but never focus on comparing our outcomes (successes and failures) with those of other people. Instead, we should focus on steadily improving our own levels of mastery of skills in scholarship and in work with students. In American academia, where both faculty members and students are ethnically and culturally diverse, such that we will often find our assumptions challenged, reflective thinking is even more essential than in a culturally homogeneous environment. Hence reflective, systematic approaches to daily practice in reading, teaching, and writing are powerful survival tactics, and are likely to sustain one’s vitality and productivity as a member of the academy.

By presenting discussions on professional development, and emphasizing the challenges and triumphs experienced by Black professors across disciplines, this book provides advice for junior Black scholars on how to navigate academe and tackle the challenges that Black scholars often face.

The mission of higher education in the 21st century must focus on optimizing learning for all students. In a shift from prioritizing effective teaching to active learning, it is understood that computer-enhanced environments provide a variety of ways to reach a wide range of learners who have differing backgrounds, ages, learning needs, and expectations. Integrating technology into teaching assumes greater importance to improve the learning experience. Optimizing Higher Education Learning Through Activities and Assessments is a collection of innovative research that explores the link between effective course design and student engagement and optimizes learning and assessments in technology-enhanced environments and among diverse student populations. Its focus is on providing an understanding of the essential link between practices for effective “activities” and strategies for effective “assessments,” as well as providing examples of course designs aligned with assessments, positioning college educators both as leaders and followers in the cycle of lifelong learning. While highlighting a broad range of topics including collaborative teaching, active learning, and flipped classroom methods, this book is ideally designed for educators, curriculum developers, instructional designers, administrators, researchers, academicians, and students.

In a shift from traditional teacher-centered (or lecture-focused) methods to learner-centered methods (shifting from an emphasis on “teaching” to “learning”), faculty are now expected to provide technology-enhanced platforms for learning and to foster 21st century skills such as teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and self-management—all of which help prepare students for successful futures as citizens, professionals, and lifelong learners. Faculty Roles and Changing Expectations in the New Age provides a theoretical understanding of the link between ongoing changes in institutions and changes in faculty roles and provides course designs and pedagogical approaches that place faculty in the role of leaders and coaches for learning. While highlighting topics such as online andragogy, language learning, and digital transformation, this publication explores real-life examples and experiences of those involved in optimizing the practices of teaching and learning in the digital age. It is ideally designed for educators, instructors, administrators, faculty, researchers, practitioners, professors, and trainers.