Managing Your Academic Career

Book excerpt: The definitive resource for mid-career professionals in the academy, this book provides a step-by-step guide to re-imagining the mid-career stage, regardless of career goals, whether aiming for full professorship or an administrative path, drawing on higher education, organizational studies, and human resource fields. Essential guidance for scholars of faculty work, faculty developers, mid-career faculty members, and institutional leaders to build a strong foundation to design a diversified portfolio of mid-career stage programming is assured. The stories, examples, literature, and resources shared throughout this comprehensive work will provide inspiration, and reality checks, to mid-career faculty and the individuals charged with better supporting them. Readers will be able to: Identify their career (or departmental/institutional) goals and next steps Determine the gaps in needed skills, tools, and experiences to support goal achievement as next steps are pursued Manage the process of taking newfound skills, tools, strategies, and resources to arrive at the intended destination. Higher education faculty, administrators, and other academic leaders will be empowered to take control of the mid-career stage by using the resources, strategies, and tools offered throughout the book to build, implement, and assess a robust mid-career faculty development program.