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.

Despite deans playing critical roles in education, little is known about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed for the job, or the practical dilemmas they face on an almost daily basis. Each chapter of this international collection opens the role up for examination and critique, developing a deeper understanding of what it means to be a dean, and offering insights into the transition into the role, managing the daily demands and expectations of it, and what it means to exit the deanship. The book brings being a dean and the leadership inherent in the position into sharp focus based on international perspectives on doing the job.

The essential guide to the hardest job in higher ed. A deanship in higher education is an exciting but complex job combining technical administration and academic leadership. On one hand, the dean is an institutional leader, standing up for the faculty, staff, and students. On the other, the dean is a middle manager, managing personnel, curriculum, and budgets and trying to live up to the expectations of the governing board, president, and provost. But what is it really like to be a dean? In How to Be a Dean, George Justice illuminates both of these leadership roles, which interact and even conflict with each other while deans do their best to help faculty members and students. Providing tested advice, Justice takes readers from the job search through the daily work of the dean and, ultimately, to the larger questions of leadership, excellence, and integrity the role provokes. He also explores the roles of "different" deanships in the broader context of academic leadership. Based on the author's experience as a dean at two large research universities, How to Be a Dean is clear, engaging, and opinionated. Current deans will use this book to reflect on the work they do in productive ways. Faculty members considering administrative work will find in this book some idea about the day-to-day work required of their institutional leaders. And finally, readers who are simply curious about what deans do will find pointed analysis about what works and what doesn't.

The role of Dean of Students is pivotal: in students’ lives; for their institutions as a conduit to senior administration about issues of concern to students; as a figure who can coordinate disparate campus constituencies -- from academic affairs and athletics to campus safety and relationships with parents and alums; and as a crisis manager.What preparation, skills, dispositions, and knowledge do DOSs need to be effective in their role; and, indeed, what areas and range of activities generally fall under their responsibility?Through chapters by experienced DOSs – from early career to veterans and in between – this book provides vivid first-hand accounts of what’s involved in managing the multiple roles of the deanship, its immense personal rewards, the positive impact that practitioners can make in the lives of students, and on campus policy and environment, without glossing over the demands on time and the concomitant stresses. The contributors describe the paths they followed to take on the role, and what they do to keep current.Each chapter offers a wealth of anecdotes that provide an insider’s feel for the daily life of the DOS, and how incumbents have found ways to integrate family and personal needs with the discharging of their often demanding responsibilities. The contributing authors offer valuable advice on setting priorities and dealing with issues as varied as setting budgets, creating an effective team, delegation, and addressing student conduct issues. They offer guidance on developing allies across campus, keeping up to date with trends and legislation, and building a network of mentors and advisors through professional associations and connection with their peers at institutions around the country. The book concludes with some perspectives about the meaning and purpose of the dean of students role in our current era and as we look to the future of higher education.The dean of students is a challenging role because it is often the one administrator thrust onto the frontlines to meet students not only at their best, but also at their worst. This person is an advocate and educator, disciplinarian and friend, confidant and counselor, and advisor and parent all rolled into one. Keep Calm and Call the Dean of Students offers a unique window into this challenging and rewarding position that will appeal to sitting deans; to those seeking this role; and to senior leaders in higher education seeking to appoint a DOS and/or organize a dean of students portfolio of responsibilities.

An experienced academic leader reflects on his career and provides advice to those new to the position.

What are the demands of being a dean? What leadership development do deans need as they progress through their academic careers? How are their responsibilities changing? What are institutions looking for in applicants?This book identifies the range of leadership skills required, and illuminates the process of building leadership capacity, by drawing on interviews with over 50 sitting deans, both women and men; on the insights derived from conducting professional development seminars for several hundred deans; and on the authors’ 48 years of collective experience in eight different deanships.The abundant examples and accounts of individual deans’ leadership successes and failures, and the competences they developed along their career paths, give the reader a taste of what the deanship is really like—and how the role changesover time. In the process of gathering their data, and tracing their own and others’, administrative journeys, the authors found similarities in how deans progress as leaders, in the common rites of passage they encounter, and in the evolution of their role. They describe the stages or “seasons” of the deanship, ranging from getting started – the first three years of deanship (springtime), to hitting your stride – years four to seven of deanship (summer), and keeping the fire alive – eight years and beyond of deanship (fall), through to planning to step down and leaving the role (winter). What also emerged from the authors’ research is that most deans come to their positions without leadership training, without prior executive experience, without a clear understanding of the ambiguity of their new role, or its responsibilities. This book fills a void by offering guidance on applying for a deanship, preparing for the role, and purposefully building the needed skills and knowledge. For anyone considering taking on a deanship, this book offers a unique window into the role. For sitting deans, it offers a compass for shaping the trajectory of their careers.

In spite of soaring tuition costs, more and more students go to college every year. A bachelor’s degree is now required for entry into a growing number of professions. And some parents begin planning for the expense of sending their kids to college when they’re born. Almost everyone strives to go, but almost no one asks the fundamental question posed by Academically Adrift: are undergraduates really learning anything once they get there? For a large proportion of students, Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa’s answer to that question is a definitive no. Their extensive research draws on survey responses, transcript data, and, for the first time, the state-of-the-art Collegiate Learning Assessment, a standardized test administered to students in their first semester and then again at the end of their second year. According to their analysis of more than 2,300 undergraduates at twenty-four institutions, 45 percent of these students demonstrate no significant improvement in a range of skills—including critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing—during their first two years of college. As troubling as their findings are, Arum and Roksa argue that for many faculty and administrators they will come as no surprise—instead, they are the expected result of a student body distracted by socializing or working and an institutional culture that puts undergraduate learning close to the bottom of the priority list. Academically Adrift holds sobering lessons for students, faculty, administrators, policy makers, and parents—all of whom are implicated in promoting or at least ignoring contemporary campus culture. Higher education faces crises on a number of fronts, but Arum and Roksa’s report that colleges are failing at their most basic mission will demand the attention of us all.