Resources

The Active Life is Parker J. Palmer's deep and graceful exploration of a spirituality for the busy, sometimes frenetic lives many of us lead. Telling evocative stories from a variety of religious traditions, including Taoist, Jewish, and Christian, Palmer shows that the spiritual life does not mean abandoning the world but engaging it more deeply through life-giving action. He celebrates both the problems and potentials of the active life, revealing how much they have to teach us about ourselves, the world, and God. (From the Publisher)

Stress can be beneficial if it triggers growth and improves the professor's performance. But it can be destructive if it leads to burnout, alcoholism, tension headaches, irritability, and boredom. The destructive consequences of faculty stress are not inevitable. They result solely from improperly managing and reacting to stressful events. This volume spells out the specific causes of faculty stress in the mid 1980's. It offers practical and proven ways of coping with the many stressful situations facing today's professors. The objective is not to try to escape the effects of stress - for it is an inevitable part of academic life - but rather to channel and control our responses to it. (From the Publisher)

This volume is structured to provide practical assistance to those engaged in the review of faculty reward systems on their campuses and to provide guidelines to academic administrators, deans, and chairs who are leading these efforts. Chapters have been designed to address major issues relating to promotion, tenure, and merit pay. The different ways in which campuses have approached the process of clarifying their missions and modifying their faculty reward structures are illustrated. Reference materials from scholarly associations and accreditation agencies are included to demonstrate disciplinary perspectives. A model for change is presented along with criteria for assessing a promotion and tenure system. A professional portfolio to document the work of faculty is also described. (From the Publisher)

The issue of women's status in higher education continues to be contested. Building on her experience as a teacher in higher education and as a staff developer, the author discusses successful practices which have empowered women, and examines the issues which concern women students and staff in higher education. The first part focuses on women students, their needs and experiences and the changes to courses, teaching and learning practices which encourage women's learning. The second part examines women staff and issues such as recruitment, training, promotion and balancing teaching pressures with family life. Gina Wisker's book is essential reading for all women working in higher education, from graduate students to full professors, for staff development groups and administrators, and men teaching women students. (From the Publisher)

In Learning from Our Lives: Women, Research, and Autobiography in Education, eleven women who are eminent educational researchers speak out intimately, and from these autobiographical accounts, readers experience how research that emerges from diverse women's lives shapes (and reshapes) educational knowledge and discourse. The book offers thoughtful insights into how the field of education might change as women assume positions of intellectual leadership. The distinguished list of contributors includes Kathryn H. Au, Concha Delgado-Gaitan, Maxine Greene, Patricia J. Gumport, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, Martha Montero-Sieburth, Anna Neumann, Nel Noddings, Penelope L. PEterson, and Linda f. Winfield. The book will be an important resource for graduate courses in foundations, teacher education, philosophy of education, women and education, research methods, sociology of education, and politics and education; general readers will find it fascinating reading as well. (From the Publisher)

This book is the written record of seven feminists' commitment to practice what they preach-to make incarnate both the fierce and the whimsical character of that which is born in every shared effort to teach and learn with minds set on justice. (From the Publisher)

A Professor's Work attempts to clear up questions about the role of the college professor in society by providing a field study of what a professor actually does. The author organizes a year of his work and his colleagues into an overview of a years teaching, research, and service. The first section describes the service work, including a depiction of the search for a new faculty member, and a committee that investigated the appearance of extremely large general educational classes. Then the teaching section focuses on the teaching and evaluation of a single course, and the dealing with problems encountered by the wide variety of students who attend an urban university. Finally, the research section exposes the relationship of writing and publishing to the conflicts and interactions of scholars and with the impact the study had on the university community. The author also includes a representation of community activities, the relationship of a professor's work to his family life, and an evaluation of professors studied against two theoretical models of professional behavior and activity. (From the Publisher)