Despite considerable research that has provided a better understanding of the challenges of doctoral education, it remains the case that only 57% of all doctoral students will complete their programs.This groundbreaking volume sheds new light on determinants for doctoral student success and persistence by examining the socialization and developmental experiences of students through multiple lenses of individual, disciplinary, and institutional contexts. This book comprehensively critiques existing models and views of doctoral student socialization, and offers a new model that incorporates concepts of identity development, adult learning, and epistemological development. The contributors bring the issues vividly to life by creating five student case studies that, throughout the book, progressively illustrate key stages and typical events of the socialization process. These fictional narratives crystallize how particular policies and practices can assist or impede the formation of future scholars.The book concludes by developing practical recommendations for doctoral students themselves, but most particularly for faculty, departments, universities, and external agencies concerned with facilitating doctoral student success.

Despite considerable research that has provided a better understanding of the challenges of doctoral education, it remains the case that only 57% of all doctoral students will complete their programs.This groundbreaking volume sheds new light on determinants for doctoral student success and persistence by examining the socialization and developmental experiences of students through multiple lenses of individual, disciplinary, and institutional contexts. This book comprehensively critiques existing models and views of doctoral student socialization, and offers a new model that incorporates concepts of identity development, adult learning, and epistemological development. The contributors bring the issues vividly to life by creating five student case studies that, throughout the book, progressively illustrate key stages and typical events of the socialization process. These fictional narratives crystallize how particular policies and practices can assist or impede the formation of future scholars.The book concludes by developing practical recommendations for doctoral students themselves, but most particularly for faculty, departments, universities, and external agencies concerned with facilitating doctoral student success.

This expanded edition of a celebrated book by philosopher and educator Steven M. Cahn offers sound advice on building a successful academic career. He explains how to plan, complete, and defend a dissertation; how to handle interviews for academic positions; how to improve your teaching; how to prepare and publish research; how to develop a professional network; and how to garner support for earning tenure. Whether you are considering enrolling in graduate school, seeking an academic position, or balancing the demands of a professorial career, you will find valuable guidance in Cahn’s insightful account of the ways of academia.

Steven M. Cahn's advice on the professorial life covers an extensive range of critical issues: how to plan, complete, and defend a dissertation; how to navigate a job interview; how to improve teaching performance; how to prepare and publish research; how to develop a professional network; and how to garner support for tenure. He deals with such hurdles as a difficult dissertation advisor, problematic colleagues, and the pressures of the tenure clock. Whether you are beginning graduate study, hoping to secure an academic position, or striving to build a professorial career, Cahn's insights are invaluable to traversing the thickets of academia.

What opportunities, rather than disruptions, do digital technologies present? How do developments in digital media not only support scholarship and teaching but also further social justice? Written by two experts in the field, this accessible book offers practical guidance, examples, and reflection on this changing foundation of scholarly practice. It is the first to consider how new technologies can connect academics, journalists, and activists in ways that foster transformation on issues of social justice. Discussing digital innovations in higher education as well as what these changes mean in an age of austerity, this book provides both a vision of what scholars can be in the digital era and a road map to how they can enliven the public good.

This book is a collection of essays I have written over the years about the scholarly writing, doctoral study, and the academic life. Most were published in a variety of venues including my blog, but I thought it would be useful to put them all together in one volume. Most of them I wrote for the benefit of my doctoral students, in order to give them insight into the nature of the world they were entering and provide them with advice about how to negotiate this world.