Higher Education Careers Beyond the Professoriate is one of the first collections to explore PhD career versatility within higher education. The twenty-three contributors represent diverse disciplines, institution types, professional roles, and intersectional identities. Each thoughtful and personal essay explores firsthand what it means to remain in higher education, yet not in the traditional role of a professor. Topics include establishing new career paradigms, well-being and work-life balance, blended roles and identities, and professional work around advocacy and inclusion. Unifying the essays is the idea that career diversity is intertwined with other diversity discourse, yielding a broad-based but critical examination of careers in higher education administration. Though the doctoral landscape continues to change, a self-determined, values-driven attitude remains essential. This book offers powerful insight into cultural and structural barriers that inhibit institutional transformation and obscure the real range of PhD futures. Frank about both challenges and opportunities, these essays reveal how letting go of “track” thinking opens a constellation of possibilities and many paths to meaningful work and a fulfilling life.

A guide for grad students and academics who want to find fulfilling careers outside higher education. With the academic job market in crisis, 'Leaving Academia' helps grad students and academics in any scholarly field find satisfying careers beyond higher education. The book offers invaluable advice to visiting and adjunct instructors ready to seek new opportunities, to scholars caught in "tenure-trap" jobs, to grad students interested in nonacademic work, and to committed academics who want to support their students and contingent colleagues more effectively. Providing clear, concrete ways to move forward at each stage of your career change, even when the going gets tough, 'Leaving Academia' is both realistic and hopeful.

Long seen as proving grounds for professors, PhD programs have begun to shed this singular sense of mission. Prompted by poor placement numbers and guided by the efforts of academic organizations, administrators and faculty are beginning to feel called to equip students for a range of careers. Yet, graduate students, faculty, and administrators often feel ill-prepared for this pivot. The Reimagined PhD assembles an array of professionals to address this difficult issue. The contributors show that students, faculty, and administrators must collaborate in order to prepare the 21st century PhD for a wide range of careers. The volume also undercuts the insidious notion that career preparation is a zero sum game in which time spent preparing for alternate careers detracts from professorial training. In doing so, The Reimagined PhD normalizes the multiple career paths open to PhD students, while providing practical advice geared to help students, faculty, and administrators incorporate professional skills into graduate training, build career networks, and prepare PhDs for a variety of careers.

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 purpose of this series is to bring together the main currents in today's higher education and examine such crucial issues as the changing nature of education in the U.S., the considerable adjustment demanded of institutions, administrators, the faculty; the role of Catholic education; the remarkable growth of higher education in Latin America, contemporary educational concerns in Europe, and more. Among the many specific questions examined in individual articles re: Is it true that women are subtly changing the academic profession? How is power concentrated in academic organizations? How successful are Latin America's private universities? What is the correlation between higher education and employment in Spain? Is minority graduate education in the U.S. producing the desired results?

Based on findings from a multiyear, nationwide study of new faculty in the field of rhetoric and composition, Stories of Becoming provides graduate students—and those who train them—with specific strategies for preparing for a career in the professoriate. Through the use of stories, the authors invite readers to experience their collaborative research processes for conducting a nationwide survey, qualitative interviews, and textual analysis of professional documents. Using data from the study, the authors offer six specific strategies—including how to manage time, how to create a work/life balance, and how to collaborate with others—that readers can use to prepare for the composition and rhetoric job market and to begin their careers as full-time faculty members. Readers will learn about the possible responsibilities they may take on as new faculty, particularly those that go beyond teaching, research, service, and administration to include navigating the politics of higher education and negotiating professional identity construction. And they will also engage in activities and answer questions designed to deepen their understanding of the field and help them identify their own values and desired career trajectory. Stories of Becoming demystifies the professoriate, compares what current new faculty have to say of their job expectations with the realities that students might face when on the job, and brings to light the invisible, behind-the-scenes work done by new faculty. It will be invaluable to graduate students, those who teach graduate students, new faculty, and hiring administrators in composition and rhetoric.

For decades, top scientists in colleges and universities pursued a clear path to success: enroll in a prestigious graduate program, conduct research, publish papers, complete the PhD, pursue postdoctoral work. With perseverance and a bit of luck, a tenure-track professorship awaited at the end. In today’s academic job market, this scenario represents the exception. As the number of newly conferred science PhDs keeps rising, the number of tenured professorships remains stubbornly stagnant. “Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in Science is a practical and thorough manual for the entire career transition process, from defining personal interests and deciding on a career path all the way to day one of a new job. Written by experienced career counselor Melanie Sinche, it is geared toward postdocs and graduate students who may not have access to effective career counseling or mentorship or are not satisfied with what they have received thus far.” —Teegan A. Dellibovi-Ragheb, Science “With its focus on PhD level scientists, this book fills a gap in job search and career information literature. It’s a must-read for those contemplating or actively pursuing studies in the subject area, as well as those who provide guidance to undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral scholars.” —Alan Farber, Library Journal (starred review)