- The College Fear Factor
- Rebecca D. Cox draws on five years of interviews and observations at community colleges, where she shows how students and their instructors misunderstand and ultimately fail one another, despite good intentions. Eye-opening even for experienced faculty and administrators, The College Fear Factor reveals how the traditional college culture can actually pose obstacles to students’ success, and suggests strategies for effectively explaining academic expectations.
- Hardcover October 2009
- The Trials of Academe
- Once upon a time, virtually no one in the academy thought to sue over campus disputes, and, if they dared, judges bounced the case on grounds that it was no business of the courts. Not so today. As Amy Gajda shows in this witty yet troubling book, litigation is now common on campus, and perhaps even more commonly feared. This book explores the origins and causes of the litigation trend, its implications for academic freedom, and what lawyers, judges, and academics themselves can do to limit the potential damage.
- Hardcover October 2009
- Creating a Class
- In real life, Stevens is a professor at Stanford University. But for a year and a half, he worked in the admissions office of a bucolic New England college known for its high academic standards, beautiful campus, and social conscience. Ambitious high schoolers and savvy guidance counselors know that admission here is highly competitive. But creating classes, Stevens finds, is a lot more complicated than most people imagine.
- Paperback September 2009
- The Gates Unbarred
- The Gates Unbarred traces the evolution of University Extension at Harvard from the Lyceum movement in Boston to its creation by the newly appointed president A. Lawrence Lowell in 1910. For a century University Extension has provided community access to Harvard, including the opportunity for women and men to earn a degree.
- Hardcover September 2009
- Teaching What You Don’t Know
- Your graduate work was on bacterial evolution, but now you're lecturing to 200 freshmen on primate social life. In this practical and funny book, an experienced teaching consultant offers many creative strategies for dealing with typical problems. Original, useful, and hopeful, this book reminds you that teaching what you don't know, to students whom you may not understand, is not just a job. It's an adventure.
- Hardcover August 2009
- The Program Era
In The Program Era, Mark McGurl offers a fundamental reinterpretation of postwar American fiction, asserting that it can be properly understood only in relation to the rise of mass higher education and the creative writing program. An engaging and stylishly written examination of an era we thought we knew, The Program Era will be at the center of debates about postwar literature and culture for years to come.
- Hardcover April 2009
- How Professors Think
Everyone in academia stresses quality. But what exactly is it, and how do professors identify it? Michèle Lamont observed deliberations for fellowships and research grants, and interviewed panel members at length. In How Professors Think, she reveals what she discovered about this secretive, powerful, peculiar world. Lamont aims to illuminate the confidential process of evaluation and to push the gatekeepers to both better understand and perform their role.
- Hardcover March 2009
- Tapping the Riches of Science
- American universities are under increasing pressure to maximize their economic contributions. This book offers a rigorous and far-sighted explanation of this controversial and little-understood movement.
- Hardcover January 2009
- Investing in College
- College education is one of the most important investments a family will make, but the process can be a headache for students and their parents. In a unique approach to this issue, economist and teacher Getz walks readers through the opportunities, risks, and rewards of heading off to college, breaking down confusing admissions and financial options.
- Paperback December 2008