- Stylish Academic Writing
- “Occasionally the tedium of reading an unending supply of poorly written manuscripts is upended by a cogent, well-written, piece. Helen Sword details why this is so prevalent and offers sage advice to beginning—and even senior—researchers on how to avoid dulling academic prose. I take her advice to heart. I hope to change my numerous bad habits and I dearly wish those submitting manuscripts would read this book.”
—Rick K. Wilson, Editor, The American Journal of Political Science
- The Program Era
- Postwar Fiction and the Rise of Creative Writing
- “McGurl performs a complicated series of critical and interpretive maneuvers in The Program Era. He describes in detail how the institutionalization of creative writing ‘has transformed the conditions under which American literature is produced’ and how that has ‘converted the Pound Era into the Program Era.’”
—Jennifer Howard, The Chronicle of Higher Education
“McGurl does have some smart things to say about the evolution of this creative writing movement—he documents it as part of the rise of progressive education in general—and about the many paradoxes involved when universities get in the business of trying to structure, codify and reward artistic endeavor.”
—Charles McGrath, The New York Times
- The Harvard Sampler
- Liberal Education for the Twenty-First Century
- From Harvard University, one of the world’s preeminent institutions of liberal education, comes a collection of essays sampling topics at the forefront of academia in the twenty-first century. Written by faculty members at the cutting edge of their fields, including such luminaries as Steven Pinker, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, and Harry R. Lewis, these essays offer a clear and accessible overview of disciplines that are shaping the culture, and even the world. The authors invite readers to explore subjects as diverse as religious literacy and Islam, liberty and security in cyberspace, medical science and epidemiology, energy resources, evolution, morality, human rights, global history, the dark side of the American Revolution, American literature and the environment, interracial literature, and the human mind. They summarize key developments in their fields in ways that will both entertain and edify those who seek an education beyond the confines of the classroom.
- The College Fear Factor
- How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another
- “We have had blue ribbon commissions, congressional committees, corporate roundtables, university consortiums and dozens of non-profit organizations struggle with the central question of American education: How do we prepare students for success in college? The written output of these groups numbers tens of thousands of pages, at least. And yet I just got more useful information from a 198-page book written by an unknown assistant professor of education at Seton Hall University than I ever learned from those stacks of well-intentioned reports. The author’s name is Rebecca D. Cox. The title of her book is The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another.”
—Jay Mathews, The Washington Post
- Unmaking the Public University
- The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class
- “Seriously researched, rich in data… [Unmaking the Public University] excavates a world of ugly facts and unsatisfactory practices that has the gritty look and feel of reality—a reality that has little to do with the glossy hype of world university ratings.”—Anthony Grafton, The New York Review of Books
- Liberal Arts at the Brink
- “Victor E. Ferrall, Jr. has written a timely book with passion, details, and insights on the factors contributing to the decline in demand for liberal arts education, the crisis facing the liberal arts colleges, and the way forward for arresting the decline… This book is must reading for those who want to know about liberal arts education and care about the survival of liberal arts colleges in general and in America in particular.”
—Edward K.Y. Chen, The Hong Kong Economic Journal
- College Admissions for the 21st Century
- “Drawing on his own research in the laboratory and in the admissions office, the distinguished psychologist and educator Robert Sternberg has broadened our vision of how college admissions can be carried out and outlined the resulting benefits for our society.”
—Howard Gardner
- How Professors Think
- Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment
- “A masterpiece. Lamont starts with her greatest accomplishment: a nuanced account of the epistemic cultures that dominate social sciences and humanities. Their differences show the problem of building a culture of discourse in multidisciplinary review, so that committees can decide which standard is best. Lamont breaks new ground in showing how personal preferences, disciplinary, gender, and ethnic diversity, and elitist and populist impulses are incorporated in such decisions.”
—Arthur Stinchcombe, author of The Logic of Social Research
- Promotion and Tenure Confidential
- “This will be an indispensable guidebook for all sorts of young academics—from graduate students bent on high-powered research careers to newly hired professors at liberal arts colleges. Whether it’s about safeguarding your internet profile, dealing with irascible colleagues, or building your tenure case, Perlmutter has great suggestions for managing the fine points of a successful academic career.”
—James Lang, author of Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year
- On Course
- A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching
- “Briskly moving through the basics, [Lang] tackles the hard questions…with humor and insight… On Course is a vital resource for educators, even those who don’t fit the first-year college-teaching market. My copy is dotted with notes about new ideas to try out in my lecture class this fall. Happily though, I took away from Lang’s guidebook much more than techniques.”
—Barbara J. King, bookslut.com
“If you are looking for a [college teaching] job, get a headstart by buying and reading this book. If you already have one, your teaching still stands to gain much from it.”
—Greg Garrard, The Times Higher Education Supplement
- Salsa Dancing into the Social Sciences
- Research in an Age of Info-glut
- “Kristin Luker has managed to produce a charming and effective manual on how to get through the research process with most of one’s enthusiasm still intact… This is a refreshing and well-judged guide produced by an engaging writer in touch with a long career’s lessons and the changing realities of researching today. For young researchers undertaking their first project or beginning a dissertation, it should prove an excellent guide.”
—Leslie Gofton, The Times Higher Education Supplement
- The Trials of Academe
- The New Era of Campus Litigation
- “Run, do not walk, to get this book—a great read on a wonderful topic. Amy Gajda is a terrific writer, generous but with real critical bite. For all her irreverent and funny style, her case that academic decisions are increasingly out of academic hands is persuasive and provocative.”
—Michael Olivas, author of The Law and Higher Education
- Creating a Class
- College Admissions and the Education of Elites
- “Skillfully blending facts and figures with evocative case studies, Mitchell Stevens illuminates the process of admissions to an elite college, and shows how vexed and conflicted it is.”
—Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard University
“Rather than serving as routes to social mobility, many college admission offices end up perpetuating the status quo. Mitchell Stevens’s thoughtful and eloquent book illuminates the machinations of the system—and its consequences.”
—Lloyd Thacker, President, Education Conservancy and editor of College Unranked
- Teaching What You Don’t Know
- “This is one of the best books I’ve read on university teaching and learning in a long time. It addresses an issue that’s seldom discussed, in a book that’s both carefully researched and wonderfully sparkling in style. The author makes a strong case that teaching outside your area of expertise is a serious and extensive problem, and she offers some highly practical advice about how to meet the challenges. I would make this book a standard text for both our new faculty program and teaching fellows program, and I suspect that many other programs will want to do the same.”
—Ken Bain, author of What the Best College Teachers Do
- Investing in College
- A Guide for the Perplexed
- “This is one of the most sensible guides to the college admissions process ever written, with a grasp of the money issues that no previous guide has had. Parents who worry about the rising price tag of college, who wonder what they are getting for their dollar, who want to know if College X is a better buy than College Y, will find Getz’s well-supported arguments and data wonderfully revealing.”
—Jay Mathews, author of Harvard Schmarvard: Getting Beyond the Ivy League to the College That Is Best for You
- The College Administrator’s Survival Guide
- “Where was this book when I was department chair? It provides an extremely useful and comprehensive set of tools and skills that would help almost anyone in academic administration—and in a conversational tone, with a good dose of humor. I found myself laughing one minute and shaking my head in recognition the next. Colleges should buy this book by the truckload and provide copies to all the poor souls who are about to be thrown into the abyss of academic administration. I learned a tremendous amount.”
—Laura Schreibman, former Associate Chancellor, University of California, San Diego
- College Unranked
- Ending the College Admissions Frenzy
- “[College Unranked] is a collection of essays by some of the most thoughtful people working in college admissions today… [Thacker] has an unusual perspective, an irresistible writing style and a passion to help students.”
—Jay Mathews, The Washington Post
“The truth could set you free! This collection of essays adds real insight to the search for college and re-centers the focus to the student’s development and well-being. Full of excellent observations and advice.”
—Richard H. Shaw, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, Stanford University
- The Questions of Tenure
- “Most books about academic tenure are based on anecdotal or subjective information, but this one attempts to analyze this contentious topic using empirical research. Chait…and several colleagues collected faculty employment policy statements from over 200 colleges and universities and then surveyed and interviewed many professors and administrators on a variety of topics related to tenure. This provided the data for the 11 chapters, which range from an overview of current policies to a study of trends in academic employment in foreign countries.”
—Will Hepfer, Library Journal
- Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line
- The Marketing of Higher Education
- “Kirp has an eye for telling examples, and he captures the turmoil and transformation in higher education in readable style.”
—Karen W. Arenson, The New York Times
“Mr. Kirp is both quite fair and a good reporter; he has a keen eye for the important ways in which bean-counting has transformed universities… Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line is one of the best education books of the year, and anyone interested in higher education will find it to be superior.”
—Martin Morse Wooster, The Washington Times
- Making the Most of College
- Students Speak Their Minds
- “Harvard Professor [Richard Light] reveals secrets from his 10-year study of successful students. [Making the Most of College] offers practical advice to school administrators, parents and, most importantly, to the students themselves.”
—Alisha Davis, Newsweek
“Based on 10 years of interviews with Harvard students, the book distills their wisdom and quotes them liberally on such matters as choosing classes, studying, diversity on campus, and the importance of writing… A good read for students, teachers, and parents.”
—Amelia Newcomb, The Christian Science Monitor
- What the Best College Teachers Do
- “Bain’s sound and scholarly yet exuberant promotion of America’s ‘best college teachers’ abounds with jaunty anecdotes and inspiring opinions that make student-centered instruction look not only infectious, but downright imperative… Though he acknowledges nationwide trends toward grade inflation, he invokes a 1990 study that suggests students are most driven by ‘high demands’ and prefer ’plentiful opportunities to revise and improve their work before it receives a grade.’ Likewise, the book argues that, even in the cutthroat climate of today’s competitive colleges, students strive best in cooperative classrooms. The best teachers, Bain avers, understand and exceed such expectations.”
—Publishers Weekly
