Full Description
The academic experiences and emotions shared in these chapters can be described as thoughtful, courageous, insightful, and worrisome. Collectively, authors draw a troubled higher education landscape that has evolved over the years from, to put it mildly, a "more pleasant" working environment in more generous times, to a less pleasant working environment in today's more restrictive, more competitive, and more financially difficult times.
However, on a positive note, contributing authors share their understanding of the core purpose of the higher education institution and its mission as purveyors of that purpose through adherence to the university's stated triad of goals: teaching, research, and service.
Contents
Acknowledgement
Notes on Contributors
Introduction and Overview: A Kaleidoscope of Careers in Academia
Dianne Conrad
Part 1: Introduction to Part 1: Higher Education, Broadly
Dianne Conrad and Walter Archer
1 "The Talk": Confronting Uncomfortable Truths about Higher Education and Academic Life
Claire Polster
2 Faculty Unionism: What, Why and Who
Tamara Leary
3 Social Worlds in the Academic Hinterland: Reflections on Strategic Growth at a Small Canadian University
Antony Puddephatt and Chris Sanders
4 The Baffling World of Middle Management in Academia
Lillie Lum and Liza Choi
5 Transitioning to Domestic Academia in the Global South with a PhD from the Global North
Aliya Kuzhabekova
6 The Impacts of "Publish or Perish" on Chinese and Canadian Academics
Shuai Yu and Lei Zhang
7 Supporting an Academic Life of Practice and Service: An Examination of the Third Mission within the Health Disciplines
Victoria Wood and Jude Walker
8 Faculty Experiences of the Changing Academy: A Conversation across Career Paths
Wendy Freeman, Sibo Chen, Afsoon Soudi and Natalia Lumby
9 Embracing Change: Journeys to Learning Design
Nicola Pallitt, Daniela Gachago and Maha Bali
Part 2: Introduction to Part 2: Struggle and Perseverance
Dianne Conrad and Walter Archer
10 Exceptance Letters: Or, What I Needed to Hear along the Way to an Academic Career
Stephanie Mason
11 The Significance Project: Ensuring Alignment in the Academy
Robin Mueller
12 A Caribbean Academic: A Journey of Self-Discovery and Perseverance
Dave V. Cassie
13 Edupreneurship and University: Life in the Groves of Academe
Stephen Murgatroyd
14 And You May Ask Yourself, "Well, How Did I Get Here?" An Unconventional Professorial Journey
Vera Dolan
15 From Third Space Professional to First-Generation Academic: Navigating New Identities
Lee Fallin
Part 3: Introduction to Part 3: In the Rear-View Mirror
Dianne Conrad and Walter Archer
16 Moving Stories
Sandra Acker
17 (When) Did I Sell Out? My Journey from Activist to Administrator to Retiree
Paul Axelrod
18 Reflections on My Social Work Career Journey
Mary Valentich
19 Critical Moments in a Precarious Academic Journey
Ailie Cleghorn
20 A Many-Hatted Career: Lessons in Survival
Dianne Conrad
21 Reflections of a Scholar Gypsy
John Daniel
22 Reflections on Learning to Think: A Researcher's Path
Janet Gail Donald
Concluding Words: Themes of Academic Life
Walter Archer
Index
