Advice Finder

How should institutions and departments support adjunct faculty?

Colleges Step Up Professional Development for Adjuncts

They make up the vast majority of the faculty, and they teach 40 percent of introductory humanities courses. A college's overall success rests largely on their shoulders.

Instead of Gaslighting Adjuncts, We Could Help Them

A Ph.D. who made it to the tenure track after six years as an adjunct describes all that her chair did to help her get there.

A Letter to Full-Time Faculty

If you can't support adjuncts out of fairness, then support them out of pure self-interest.

Characteristics of Adjunct Faculty

Adjuncts in 2018 were likely to be over age 40, to have a master's as their highest degree, and to teach one or two courses at a single institution. That and other data on contingent faculty members can be found here.

How much service should I do as an adjunct or NTT?

Faculty Service and the Difference Between Opportunity and Exploitation

Who and what is served when contingent faculty members do departmental service?

How to Advocate for Yourself as an Early-Career Scholar

Many academics spend 60 percent of their time on tasks that go unrecognized. Don’t Let that happen to you.

Skip the Department Meeting

It’s not in your interest to attend if you’re a contingent faculty member.

Should I quit adjunct teaching?

What Advantage? A Few Reality Checks for Internal Adjunct Candidates

Five lessons from the experience of applying for the tenure-track version of your previously contingent job.

Leaving the Adjunct Track

No hard feelings but I don't miss academe and I probably won't be back.

How Ph.D.s Romanticize the ‘Regular’ Job Market

Be skeptical of any grass-is-greener hype about your nonacademic career options.

Defending My Grades

The semester was over, but the adjunct instructor wasn’t done working, just done being paid.

How do I tell my adviser I'm quitting academe?

A Ph.D. who made it to the tenure track after six years as an adjunct describes all that her chair did to help her get there.

Breaking the Alt-Ac News

How do you tell your Ph.D. adviser who disdains nonacademic careers that you've accepted a private-sector job?

How to Tell Your Adviser

Ph.D. students’ anxiety over admitting their nonfaculty aspirations may be justified.

The First Steps to a Nonfaculty Job Search

Start by making the most of the Ph.D. alumni panels cropping up across academe.

Knowing When to Say When

You’ve been through several rounds of the academic hiring cycle. Is it time to move on?

Just Another Piece of Quit Lit

Leaving my Ph.D. program turned out to be a smarter decision than applying.

Why Everybody Loses When Someone Leaves Academe

As academics, we cope with the loss in ways that largely erase the people who have left, ignore their pain and grief, and suppress our own.

Why It’s So Hard to Leave Academe

Rational people have good reasons for staying in a system that has failed them.

Finding Meaning After Academe

It turns out you can no longer do what you love. Now what?

How do I prepare for a nonacademic job search?

From CV to 1-Page Résumé

What you need to know about preparing cover letters and résumés for nonteaching and nonacademic positions.

The First Steps to a Nonfaculty Job Search

Start by making the most of the Ph.D. alumni panels cropping up across academe.

How easy is it for a Ph.D. to find a nonacademic job?

It turns out you can no longer do what you love. Now what?

What It's Like to Search for Jobs Outside of Academe

Nonacademic hiring is very different from what a Ph.D. is used to, and can be challenging or even infuriating.

Before You Write a Cover Letter for a Nonfaculty Job, Try This Exercise

For Ph.D.s, figuring out how to describe your "transferable skills" is a lot harder than it looks.

‘So What Are You Going to Do With That?'

Has academe's attitude toward nonacademic careers for Ph.D.'s changed much in a decade?

From Bench Science to ...

A series of Q&As with Ph.D.s in the sciences who left academe to pursue various nonacademic careers.

From Homer to High Tech

My journey from a liberal-arts Ph.D. program to a career in the tech world.

Information Technology: The Accidental Career for Ph.D.s

The question is not whether IT work is suitable, but what kind of IT work is suitable.

From Academe to Market Research

A Ph.D. in the life sciences offers advice on pursuing a nonacademic job

Turning 'Plan B' Into a 'Plan A' Life

How an ex-doctoral student in history found her niche in a career in academic publishing.

From Ph.D. to Self-Employed Consultant

Going solo in your own communications business directly from academe virtually guarantees failure.

From Biologist to Life Coach

How did a Ph.D. in synthetic biology end up advising people on life and career choices?

Quasi-Academic Careers

A political scientist offers advice for Ph.D.'s who are considering careers at foundations and think tanks.

How do I tell my adviser I'm quitting academe?

Breaking the Alt-Ac News

How do you tell your Ph.D. adviser who disdains nonacademic careers that you've accepted a private-sector job?

How to Tell Your Adviser

Ph.D. students’ anxiety over admitting their nonfaculty aspirations may be justified.

The First Steps to a Nonfaculty Job Search

Start by making the most of the Ph.D. alumni panels cropping up across academe.

Knowing When to Say When

You’ve been through several rounds of the academic hiring cycle. Is it time to move on?

Why Everybody Loses When Someone Leaves Academe

As academics, we cope with the loss in ways that largely erase the people who have left, ignore their pain and grief, and suppress our own.

Why It’s So Hard to Leave Academe

Rational people have good reasons for staying in a system that has failed them

Finding Meaning After Academe

It turns out you can no longer do what you love. Now what?

How do I prepare for a nonacademic job search?

Do This While You Diss

Five easy steps you can take in graduate school to prepare for an alt-ac job search.

The First Steps to a Nonfaculty Job Search

Start by making the most of the Ph.D. alumni panels cropping up across academe.

From CV to 1-Page Résumé

What you need to know about preparing cover letters and résumés for nonteaching and nonacademic positions.

Finding Meaning After Academe

It turns out you can no longer do what you love. Now what?

Before You Write a Cover Letter for a Nonfaculty Job, Try This Exercise

For Ph.D.s, figuring out how to describe your "transferable skills" is a lot harder than it looks.

How do I decide when to leave academe for another career?

Knowing When to Say When

You’ve been through several rounds of the academic hiring cycle. Is it time to move on?

Just Another Piece of Quit Lit

Leaving my Ph.D. program turned out to be a smarter decision than applying.

Why It’s So Hard to Leave Academe

Rational people have good reasons for staying in a system that has failed them.

Can I still do research after I leave academe?

A Scholar, but Not a Professor

Leaving academe does not mean you have to give up your intellectual interests.

When Leaving Academe, Which Research Projects Do You Leave Unfinished?

For Ph.D.s who opt to pursue nonacademic careers, disentangling from scholarly commitments can seem more difficult than completing them.

Why Everybody Loses When Someone Leaves Academe

Nonacademic hiring is very different from what a Ph.D. is used to, and can be challenging or even infuriating.

How easy is it for a Ph.D. to find a nonacademic job?

What It's Like to Search for Jobs Outside of Academe

Nonacademic hiring is very different from what a Ph.D. is used to, and can be challenging or even infuriating.

Before You Write a Cover Letter for a Nonfaculty Job, Try This Exercise

For Ph.D.s, figuring out how to describe your "transferable skills" is a lot harder than it looks.

‘So What Are You Going to Do With That?'

Has academe's attitude toward nonacademic careers for Ph.D.'s changed much in a decade?

From Bench Science to ...

A series of Q&As with Ph.D.s in the sciences who left academe to pursue various nonacademic careers.

From Homer to High Tech

My journey from a liberal-arts Ph.D. program to a career in the tech world.

Information Technology: The Accidental Career for Ph.D.s

The question is not whether IT work is suitable, but what kind of IT work is suitable.

From Academe to Market Research

A Ph.D. in the life sciences offers advice on pursuing a nonacademic job

Turning 'Plan B' Into a 'Plan A' Life

How an ex-doctoral student in history found her niche in a career in academic publishing.

From Ph.D. to Self-Employed Consultant

Going solo in your own communications business directly from academe virtually guarantees failure.

From Biologist to Life Coach

How did a Ph.D. in synthetic biology end up advising people on life and career choices?

Quasi-Academic Careers

A political scientist offers advice for Ph.D.'s who are considering careers at foundations and think tanks.

How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

This comprehensive guide offers a road map to make sure your classroom interactions and course design reach all students, not just some of them.

The Case for Inclusive Teaching

If we can't recruit additional students, we need to make every effort to keep more of the ones we have.

The Diversity Question and the Administrative-Job Interview

What are the best ways to ask and answer questions about race, ethnicity, and inclusion?

Interviewing While LGBTQ

The questions and issues you should think about on the academic job market.

Colleges Can Recover From Racial Crisis by Taking a Lesson From Mizzou

The university's 2015 protests drew national attention. A 2018 report details what leaders of the flagship campus and the University of Missouri system have done to further healing and forestall renewed protests.

How to Respond to Racist Incidents

In the short term, affirm your values and mission, experts say. In the long term, work on the cultural antagonisms that fester on every campus.

Getting Minority Ph.D. Students to the Finish Line

To improve retention and help diversify the future professoriate, some colleges embrace formal mentoring programs.

How Search Committees Can See Bias in Themselves

Most hiring panels are designed to represent a diverse mix of people, yet they still bring with them hidden motives.

Hiring a Diversity Officer Is Only the First Step. Here Are the Next seven.

Institutional support at all levels is key to transforming the climate of everyday campus life.

How Serious Are You About Diversity Hiring?

Putting principles into practice takes leadership, resources, and commitment. These colleges are using multistage anti-bias procedures to shake up the status quo.

How to Do a Better Job of Searching for Diversity

In the often subjective faculty-search process, some colleges are taking new steps to bring a wider spectrum of candidates to the table.

How and Why We Built a Majority-Minority Faculty

Professors tend to replicate themselves, and diverse hiring committees tend to replicate their own diversity.

Advice on Advising: How to Mentor Minority Students

"I did not always understand how much labor, thought, and care went into meaningful mentoring, how emotionally draining that work can be, and how little prepared I was for it."

How can we deal with enrollment declines?

The Great Enrollment Crash

Students aren’t showing up. And it’s only going to get worse.

Where Did All the Students Go?

Five views on the great enrollment crash of 2019.

How can we improve student success and retention?

How to Curb Freshman Attrition

At a time of declining enrollments and shrinking high-school classes, you can’t afford to lose a third of your first-year class. Here is a series of three articles on a holistic approach to student retention.

Customer Service is Misguided in the Classroom But Crucial in Advising

How a former faculty member came around to the importance of serving his undergraduate "clients."

How Learning Communities Can Keep Higher Ed’s Most At-Risk Students on Track

Close-knit academic networks form strong bonds among students. A mix of intensive advising and mentoring helps them stay focused, too.

How to Help First-Generation Students Succeed

This series of 10 articles examines a wide array of campus strategies to help first-generation students adjust to the college experience, and excel.

Advice on Advising: How to Mentor Minority Students

"I did not always understand how much labor, thought, and care went into meaningful mentoring, how emotionally draining that work can be, and how little prepared I was for it."

Inside the UC System’s New Focus on Transfer Students

The University of California wanted to increase diversity, save money, and protect the state from economic downturns. The key? Enabling more community-college students to successfully leap to four-year programs.

New Strategies and Technologies for Advising

A series of four articles explores how advising is becoming more professionalized and high tech. But colleges are just beginning to learn how to use new masses of data to help their students thrive.

For Mentorships to Work, Colleges Have to Commit

Professors' guidance can be life-changing for students, but the relationships require sustained resources, rewards, and support for the faculty members participating.

How should I prepare for a campus interview?

7 Hazards of the Campus Interview

How to handle inappropriate questions, random comments, and offers of alcohol.

Showing Your Best Self in the Campus Interview

The person you present during your two-day visit is the person the search committee will assume you to be.

How to Give an Excellent STEM Job Talk

The job talk during a campus interview is where you can really shine — or very publicly fail.

The Art of the Campus Interview

It's not a good sign when the search committee is more interested in snapping food pics than in chatting with you.

The First-Round Interview Versus the Campus Visit

You’ve already interviewed with the whole search committee in Round 1. Why do you have to repeat that exercise in Round 2?

Interviewing While LGBTQ

The questions and issues you should think about on the academic job market.

What to Expect at a Community-College Interview

Ph.D.s applying to teach at two-year campuses will encounter a very different sort of job interview.

How to Lower the Stakes of the Job-Interview Dinner

When hiring committees take job candidates out to eat, cultural anxiety is often on the table, too.

The Diversity Question and the Administrative-Job Interview

What are the best ways to ask and answer questions about race, ethnicity, and inclusion?

The Job Market: The Campus Interview

The person you present during your two-day visit is the person the search committee will assume you to be.

Are the horror stories about job searching true?

Academic Job Hunts From Hell

This series explores all the things that can go wrong for candidates during the faculty job hunt, including fake searches, bad fits, inappropriate questions, and scheduling challenges.

5 Big-Picture Mistakes New Ph.D.s Make on the Job Market

All sorts of magical thinking can distort the realities of the tenure-track job hunt.

How Not to Blow a Job Interview.

It's all too easy to find yourself out of the running thanks to an ill-considered response.

I Found a Tenure-Track Job. Here’s What it Took.

Two hiring seasons, and 112 applications.

I Found a Tenure-Track Job, Part 2: The Big Picture.

My experience on the market was just one data point, not a complete description of a highly stochastic process.

Warning Signs That You and Your Campus Are a Bad Fit

Should you think about going back on the faculty job market?

The Odds Are Never in Your Favor

Why the academic job market is like the Hunger Games.

Some Lesser-Known Truths about Academe

They warn you about the job market but not necessarily all the other ways in which you might not fit faculty life.

‘Operation Keep My Job’

What to do when your third-year review leaves you on shaky ground.

Do I have to ‘network’ (ugh!) to advance my career?

Banish the Smarm

Effective networking isn't slimy -- it's sincere, deep, and generous.

How to Talk to Famous Professors

A cheat sheet for making a potential contact without gushing or embarrassing yourself.

How to Create and Keep a Useful Network

On why you need to maintain and prune your network of contacts.

How Do I Create a Professional Network?

Networking is a game of numbers. The more you reach out, the more likely you'll make a strong contact.

Forget Mentors -- What We Really Need Are Fans

Not the obsessive type, but the kind whose support shows your work has reached people.

Why I Love Academic Conferences

How to get the most out of your field's annual meeting.

How do I change jobs gracefully?

The Good Goodbye

A primer on post-hire etiquette for faculty members who are changing jobs.

The Good Hello

A primer on post-hire etiquette once you’re started at your new position.

How to Start Off Right in Your New Job

If you're beginning a new faculty post in the fall, summer is the time to start preparing for what's coming.

What to Expect in Your First Semester at a Community College

As a new full-time faculty member at a two-year college, your first year on the job is often your most difficult.

How to Develop a TSC (Trusted Senior Colleague)

Your first priority as a new faculty member should be to find the right allies.

The Etiquette of Accepting a Job Offer

How to get to 'yes' efficiently and amicably.

How can I tell if the department and I are a good fit?

Do You Fit Us?

The hiring department is looking for a person, not just a CV.

Detecting a Bad Fit

How do you recognize when a department with a job opening is not the place for you?

Warning Signs That You and Your Campus Are a Bad Fit

Is it time to go back on the faculty job market?

Research First or Teaching?

How to tell if a hiring department is more interested in your scholarship or your pedagogy.

Academic Job Hunts From Hell

A series of essays on all the things that can go wrong for candidates during the faculty job hunt, including fake searches, bad fits, inappropriate questions, and scheduling challenges.

How do I move up in administration?

Do You Really Want That Interim Job?

A temporary leadership gig can elevate your career prospects, or sink them entirely.

Administration Was a Definite No, Until it Became a Yes

A professor who had always resisted the call takes his first steps on the administrative path.

To Chair or Not to Chair?

Whether to lead your department is a question that every faculty member must answer. Here are some factors to help you make the call.

How to Be Both a Professor and a Dean

Administrators who hold on to their faculty roots will benefit both themselves and their institutions.

They Don't Train Us for This

13 lessons I wish someone had taught me before I became an academic administrator.

So You Want to Be a Dean?

You’d better be skilled at risk management and compromise.

Admin 101: Deciding to Lead

Four key questions to ask yourself (and your family).

Now You’re in Charge

10 things you should know about becoming an administrator.

Faculty Members Can Lead, but Will They?

Academe needs a new breed of professors who will not nurture antipathy for leadership.

How Nontraditional Presidents Can Adjust and Thrive

Academe is a very different culture than business, government, or NGOs. But careful listening and good guidance from senior cabinet members can help a new leader acclimatize to shared governance and establish a good working relationship with faculty.

Every Sin Is a Public Sin

What if you couldn't get a job because of that thing -- that stupid thing from so long ago?

How do I avoid burnout in the classroom?

4 Ideas for Avoiding Faculty Burnout

If we're feeling depressed and anxious, it's near-impossible to do our jobs well in the college classroom.

3 Ways Colleges Can Help Faculty Members Avoid Burnout

If institutions hope to flourish, it’s in their interest to make sure their faculty flourish, too.

How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome

Scholars of all ages wrestle with feelings of "intellectual phoniness." So how do you get over it?

You Are Not a Public Utility

When strangers seek your expertise, do you have to respond? What if it's a student?

Does 'High-Impact' Teaching Cause High-Impact Fatigue?

"Transformative" teaching is exhausting. Here are some suggestions on how to lessen the load.

How to Escape Grading Jail

In the end-of-the-semester crush, our students don’t do their best work in all-night cram sessions, and neither do we.

How Can You Make Big Classes Feel Smaller?

Emails, sent at key moments during the semester, are one strategy for helping personalize the large lecture.

Why I Collapsed on the Job

Academics are silent workaholics — so free to work whenever we want that many of us end up working all the time.

How to Prepare for Class Without Overpreparing

Let go of the fantasy that you must use every minute of a strictly planned class schedule to introduce, explain, clarify, and cover.

How do I avoid post-tenure depression?

Preventing Post-Tenure Malaise

A faculty career can last 30 or 40 years. That's a long time to be plagued with self-doubts.

Avoiding PTDS: Post-Tenure Depression Syndrome

Why are the years after academics have ‘made it’ so gloomy for so many?

Me and My Shadow CV

What would my vita look like if it recorded not just the successes of my professional life but also the many, many rejections.

How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome

Scholars of all ages wrestle with feelings of "intellectual phoniness." So how do you get over it?

Our Fixation on Midcareer Malaise

We need to stop focusing on deadwood tales and overlooking the post-tenure success stories.

On Faculty and Mental Illness

Finally, academe has a guide for how to better treat its psychiatrically disabled workers.

How do I cope with the stress of academic science?

What Is the Going Rate for Tenure Nowadays?

The careers of promising scientists are in peril, amid intense pressure to bring in a big grant.

The Bittersweet Task of Running a Grant Program

From drafting the call for proposals to announcing the results, here's what you need to know.

Rethinking the Scientific Career

A career in science should be a long and winding adventure, not an uphill slog.

'Good' Hard vs. 'Bad' Hard

Which type of research challenges are you experiencing?

Working With Jerks

In science, tenured or not, sometimes you don't have a choice about who you collaborate with.

I Found a Tenure-Track Job. Here’s What it Took.

Two hiring seasons and 112 applications.

I Found a Tenure-Track Job, Part 2: The Big Picture.

My experience on the market was just one data point, not a complete description of a highly stochastic process.

How can we support students' mental health?

How to Help a Student in a Mental-Health Crisis

You're a faculty member, not a trained counselor. But you can play a significant role in guiding a struggling student.

How Faculty Advisers Can Be First Responders When Students Need Help

Professors can't be experts in everything that can go wrong for a student. But they should know how to make referrals to necessary campus resources.

Reading, Writing, and Resilience

In the face of a student mental-health crisis, a few colleges are putting wellness into the curriculum.

Looking to Improve Students’ Mental Health? Ask What They Need

The new world of mental-health services includes food pantries and bus tickets, and involves the entire campus.

Colleges Teach Students How to Think. Should They Also Teach Them How to Thrive?

Colleges Teach Students How to Think. Should They Also Teach Them How to Thrive?

How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

This comprehensive guide offers a road map to make sure your classroom interactions and course design reach all students, not just some of them.

Why We Need to Talk More About Mental Health in Graduate School

Doctoral students disproportionately experience anxiety, depression, and other forms of mental illness throughout their training.

How to Hope in Graduate School

As doctoral students, we privately struggle with anxieties that turn out to be commonly shared.

Graduate School Should Be Challenging, Not Traumatic

No, students complaining about a toxic adviser aren't just whining about the workload.

How do I get salary data for administrative jobs?

The Profession: Almanac 2018

Learn how much professors, administrators, and chief executives are paid in different sectors, how diverse those groups are, and what percentage of faculty members lack tenure.

How do I find other faculty salaries?

Chronicle Data

Search and explore faculty, staff, and adjunct salary data at thousands of colleges.

The Profession: Almanac 2018

Learn how much professors, administrators, and chief executives are paid in different sectors, how diverse those groups are, and what percentage of faculty members lack tenure. Explore the tables and charts in this section.

3 Things a Faculty-Pay Survey Shows About Academic Jobs

A look at the annual faculty-compensation report of the American Association of University Professors.

Should I negotiate?

OK, Let’s Talk About Negotiating Salary

Don’t panic: It’s overwhelmingly unlikely that asking for more money will get your offer rescinded. Still, it’s important to go about this the right way.

Why You Should Negotiate Every Job Offer

Ask your potential department for what you deserve (within reason), whether or not you have the leverage of a second job offer.

Did They Lowball Me?

I didn’t negotiate my starting salary. Is it too late to try now?

Negotiation 101

Advice from eight academics on how to negotiate a faculty job offer.

Do I need a counteroffer to get a pay raise?

Why You Should Negotiate Every Job Offer

Ask your potential department for what you deserve (within reason), whether or not you have the leverage of a second job offer.

Offers and Counteroffers

Do you have to leave if your university declines to give you a counteroffer?

Midcareer Negotiating

You've got an outside offer, so how do you go about negotiating the counteroffer from your university?

How do I make outside money as a faculty member?

How to Get Started in Freelance Writing

If writing for general magazines and web sites is something you really want to do in graduate school or after, prioritize it.

The Tenured Entrepreneur

Haven’t gotten a raise in several years? It’s time to peddle your skills on the open market.

How to Make Money From Speaking Engagements

For academics, the real money is in speaking engagements. Here’s how to procure them.

How can we improve student success and retention?

How to Curb Freshman Attrition

At a time of declining enrollments and shrinking high-school classes, you can’t afford to lose a third of your first-year class. Here is a series of three articles on a holistic approach to student retention.

Customer Service is Misguided in the Classroom But Crucial in Advising

How a former faculty member came around to the importance of serving his undergraduate "clients."

How Learning Communities Can Keep Higher Ed’s Most At-Risk Students on Track

Close-knit academic networks form strong bonds among students. A mix of intensive advising and mentoring helps them stay focused, too.

How to Help First-Generation Students Succeed

This series of 10 articles examines a wide array of campus strategies to help first-generation students adjust to the college experience, and excel.

Advice on Advising: How to Mentor Minority Students

"I did not always understand how much labor, thought, and care went into meaningful mentoring, how emotionally draining that work can be, and how little prepared I was for it."

Inside the UC System’s New Focus on Transfer Students

The University of California wanted to increase diversity, save money, and protect the state from economic downturns. The key? Enabling more community-college students to successfully leap to four-year programs.

New Strategies and Technologies for Advising

A series of four articles explores how advising is becoming more professionalized and high tech. But colleges are just beginning to learn how to use new masses of data to help their students thrive.

For Mentorships to Work, Colleges Have to Commit

Professors' guidance can be life-changing for students, but the relationships require sustained resources, rewards, and support for the faculty members participating.

How can we support students' mental health?

How Faculty Advisers Can Be First Responders When Students Need Help

Professors can't be experts in everything that can go wrong for a student. But they should know how to make referrals to necessary campus resources.

Reading, Writing, and Resilience

In the face of a student mental-health crisis, a few colleges are putting wellness into the curriculum.

Looking to Improve Students’ Mental Health? Ask What They Need

The new world of mental-health services includes food pantries and bus tickets, and involves the entire campus.

How to Help a Student in a Mental-Health Crisis

You're a faculty member, not a trained counselor. But you can play a significant role in guiding a struggling student.

Colleges Teach Students How to Think. Should They Also Teach Them How to Thrive?

Colleges Teach Students How to Think. Should They Also Teach Them How to Thrive?

How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

This comprehensive guide offers a road map to make sure your classroom interactions and course design reach all students, not just some of them.

Why We Need to Talk More About Mental Health in Graduate School

Doctoral students disproportionately experience anxiety, depression, and other forms of mental illness throughout their training.

How to Hope in Graduate School

As doctoral students, we privately struggle with anxieties that turn out to be commonly shared.

Graduate School Should Be Challenging, Not Traumatic

No, students complaining about a toxic adviser aren't just whining about the workload.

How do I create a syllabus?

How to Create a Syllabus

There’s never a bad time to re-examine and rethink how to write your syllabus. This guide walks you through everything you need to know, with specific tips and strategies, to craft an effective syllabus.

How do I improve my teaching?

How to Prepare for a Teaching Career

In between finishing your dissertation, here's what you should be doing to enhance your candidacy.

Small Changes in Teaching

How simple changes in pedagogy — in things like course design, classroom practices, and communication with students — can have a powerful impact on student learning.

How to Prepare for Class Without Overpreparing

Let go of the fantasy that you must use every minute of a strictly planned class schedule to introduce, explain, clarify, and cover.

How to Make Your Teaching More Engaging

Stimulate your students’ curiosity — and help them learn — using the tried-and-true techniques in this comprehensive guide.

How to Teach a Good First Day of Class

The first day of class is crucial both for your students and for you. This guide will help you make opening day as effective as possible.

How Peer Instruction And Polling Have Changed My Teaching

Here’s why I gave peer instruction and polling a try, and why you might consider it, too.

How to Hold a Better Class Discussion

Good discussions involve taking risks, by the students and the professor. This comprehensive guide is filled with tips to help improve yours.

How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

This comprehensive guide offers a road map to make sure your classroom interactions and course design reach all students, not just some of them.

The Case for Inclusive Teaching

If we can't recruit additional students, we need to make every effort to keep more of the ones we have.

The ‘Holy Grail’ of Class Discussion

Why faculty members should come up with more ambitious goals for class discussion than just getting students to talk.

Advice on Advising: How to Mentor Minority Students

"I did not always understand how much labor, thought, and care went into meaningful mentoring, how emotionally draining that work can be, and how little prepared I was for it."

To: Professors, Re: Your Advisees

Why am I getting paid to mentor your graduate students? Because someone has to do it.

How do I engage my students in class more effectively?

How to Make Your Teaching More Engaging

Stimulate your students’ curiosity — and help them learn — using the tried-and-true techniques in this comprehensive guide.

Getting Beyond Brain Games

A new book looks at how to apply the science of learning to college teaching.

How Students Learn From Games

How can professors use simulation games in the classroom.

And on the Last Day of Class, We'll Play Games

Why I decided to ditch the blue books for an "epic" final exam.

How Peer Instruction And Polling Have Changed My Teaching

Here’s why I gave peer instruction and polling a try, and why you might consider it, too.

How to Hold a Better Class Discussion

Good discussions involve taking risks, by the students and the professor. This comprehensive guide is filled with tips to help improve yours.

How to Make Your Teaching More Inclusive

This comprehensive guide offers a road map to make sure your classroom interactions and course design reach all students, not just some of them.

How to Make Smart Choices About Tech for Your Course

Choosing the right tech tools for your teaching means making strategic choices, weighing costs against payoffs, and staying laser-focused on your course goals — and that is what this guide aims to help you do.

Tell Me a Smart Story: On Podcasts, Videos, and Websites as Writing

Letting students "write" in nontraditional formats has the potential to have a major impact on our classrooms.

How can I be a better online teacher?

How to Be a Better Online Teacher

Many professors don’t know how to teach online, and may not know how to improve at it. Our comprehensive guide can help.

How to Make Smart Choices About Tech for Your Course

Choosing the right tech tools for your teaching means making strategic choices, weighing costs against payoffs, and staying laser-focused on your course goals — and that is what this guide aims to help you do.

Tell Me a Smart Story: On Podcasts, Videos, and Websites as Writing

Letting students "write" in nontraditional formats has the potential to have a major impact on our classrooms.

Teaching Online Will Make You a Better Teacher in Any Setting

Adapting a course for a digital environment forces you to ask yourself why you're doing a particular pedagogical thing — and then to rethink it.

Why I Teach Online

It turns out that online instruction is a feminist issue.

7 Steps to Better Online Teaching

What one instructor learned from YouTube, and other strategies that helped her better motivate her students.

Faculty Members Can Build Relationships With Online Students. Here’s How.

Learning that you can bring a personal touch to the virtual classroom just might make you a convert.

How do I figure out my teaching persona?

I Don't Like Teaching. There, I Said It.

It's perfectly possible to dislike teaching and still do a good, even an excellent, job in the classroom.

Stop Blaming Students for Your Listless Classroom

How the use of games as a teaching methodology has the potential to break the long history of student disengagement in college learning.

Don't Be Hard to Get Along With

Why do faculty members insist on rigid rules to prepare students for the "real" world when that world is characterized by accomodation?

Be Hard to Get Along With

Growing problems of classroom decorum mean faculty members have to get tough or sacrifice learning for all students.

How to Help a Student in a Mental-Health Crisis

You're a faculty member, not a trained counselor. But you can play a significant role in guiding a struggling student.

Sar-Chasm in the Classroom

I do my best to avoid snarky rejoinders when I’m teaching yet they pop out uninvited.

How do I avoid burnout in the classroom?

4 Ideas for Avoiding Faculty Burnout

If we're feeling depressed and anxious, it's near-impossible to do our jobs well in the college classroom.

3 Ways Colleges Can Help Faculty Members Avoid Burnout

If institutions hope to flourish, it’s in their interest to make sure their faculty flourish, too.

How to Prepare for Class Without Overpreparing

Let go of the fantasy that you must use every minute of a strictly planned class schedule to introduce, explain, clarify, and cover.

You Are Not a Public Utility

When strangers seek your expertise, do you have to respond? What if it's a student?

Does 'High-Impact' Teaching Cause High-Impact Fatigue?

"Transformative" teaching is exhausting. Here are some suggestions on how to lessen the load.

Why I Collapsed on the Job

Academics are silent workaholics — so free to work whenever we want that many of us end up working all the time.

How Can You Make Big Classes Feel Smaller?

How Can You Make Big Classes Feel Smaller?

Emails, sent at key moments during the semester, are one strategy for helping personalize the large lecture.

What do I need to know about grading?

How to Escape Grading Jail

In the end-of-the-semester crush, our students don’t do their best work in all-night cram sessions, and neither do we.

Final Exams Versus Epic Finales

Instead of a multiple-choice test, try ending the semester with one, last memorable learning experience.

‘How Much Do You Want Your Final to Count?’

An economics professor devises a way to allow a class of 200 more choice over how they are graded.

Why I’m Easy: On Giving Lots of A’s

The importance of encouraging students, weighed down by preprofessional courses, to take a class for — dare I say it? — pleasure.

Why Grades Still Matter

High standards coupled with high expectations — including encouragement, not derision — create real student success.

What Is the Purpose of Final Exams, Anyway?

It's not just about inflicting one more test before the semester ends. There are ways to make it meaningful.

The Extra-Credit Question: Should You Offer It or Resist?

It's that time of the semester when students start to wonder what they can do to boost their final grades.

Defending My Grades

The semester was over, but the adjunct instructor wasn’t done working, just done being paid.

I’m Not Ready to Quit Grading

But I am ready to ask students to do more self-assessments, and to give their "grading" as much weight as mine.

How do I decide what goes into my tenure file?

10 Things No One Told Me About Applying for Tenure

A tenure file forces you to confront who you are, what you've done, and who you want to become.

The Professor Is In: 4 Steps to a Strong Tenure File

Too many tenure narratives veer wildly between paroxysms of grandiosity and groveling insecurity.

How to Be Strategic on the Tenure Track

It's difficult to resist the pressure to overwork since that is often the only path to tenure.

How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome

Scholars of all ages wrestle with feelings of "intellectual phoniness." So how do you get over it?

Presenting Your Tenure File

The best thing you can do for your tenure packet is make it as impressive in design as in content.

What can I do if I get a bad third-year review?

‘Operation Keep My Job’

What to do when your third-year review leaves you on shaky ground.

Me and My Shadow CV

What would my vita look like if it recorded not just the successes of my professional life but also the many, many rejections.

Publishing Isn’t Just About Volume; It’s Also About Strategy

Few benchmarks for tenure are more important than getting that first book contract if you are in a book field at a research university.

Service With a Smile

How to do enough, but not too much, institutional service on the tenure track.

To: Professors, Re: Your Advisees

Why am I getting paid to mentor your graduate students? Because someone has to do it.

You Are Not a Public Utility

When strangers seek your expertise, do you have to respond? What if it's a student?

How do I avoid stalling at midcareer?

Terminal Associate Professors, Past and Present

Why do some academics stall at midcareer?

Preventing Post-Tenure Malaise

A faculty career can last 30 or 40 years. That's a long time to be plagued with self-doubts.

Me and My Shadow CV

What would my vita look like if it recorded not just the successes of my professional life but also the many, many rejections.

How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome

Scholars of all ages wrestle with feelings of "intellectual phoniness." So how do you get over it?

Our Fixation on Midcareer Malaise

We need to stop focusing on deadwood tales and overlooking the post-tenure success stories.

You Might Not Be Ready for Promotion

People often overestimate their accomplishments, and associate professors are no exception.

I Did Not Slow Down Once I Got Tenure

And I don't know many faculty members who did.

Ambivalence About Midcareer Moves

For tenured professors, the possibility of changing departments triggers uncertainties that are not always easy or possible to resolve.

You Are Not a Public Utility

When strangers seek your expertise, do you have to respond? What if it's a student?

Should I have a baby before tenure?

The Baby-Before-Tenure Question

Balancing an academic career with the realities of a biological clock.

I Don’t Regret Not Having Kids, and I Don’t Resent Yours, Either

A “childfree" academic mulls the delicate kid issue in the context of teaching, tenure, and faculty life.

No I Am Not Pregnant

Why women in academe feel our bodies are “always under watch.”

Coming Out as Academic Mothers

What happens when two highly driven women in academe decide to have children?

Academic Science Isn't Friendly to Fathers, Either

Male academic scientists are finding it extremely hard to negotiate their work and family lives, too.

Should You Have a Baby in Graduate School?

The decision belongs to you, not the chair of your dissertation committee.

The Perfect Academic Baby

There’s no such thing, of course, but my university certainly could have made my own pregnancy less fraught.

Are Children Career Killers?

Kids don’t spell the end of their mothers’ academic aspirations. All too often, persistent bias does.

How do I avoid post-tenure depression?

Preventing Post-Tenure Malaise

A faculty career can last 30 or 40 years. That's a long time to be plagued with self-doubts.

Avoiding PTDS: Post-Tenure Depression Syndrome

Why are the years after academics have “made it” so gloomy for so many?

How to Overcome Impostor Syndrome

Scholars of all ages wrestle with feelings of "intellectual phoniness." So how do you get over it?

Our Fixation on Midcareer Malaise

We need to stop focusing on deadwood tales and overlooking the post-tenure success stories.

You Are Not a Public Utility

When strangers seek your expertise, do you have to respond? What if it's a student?

How do I decide when to retire?

Leaving the Academic Stage

Should I be thinking about making room for a younger generation of scholars?

Dignity in Retirement Is Not Too Much to Ask

How can we reinvent faculty retirement to benefit all parties?

Adjusting to Civilian Life

Just because people keep asking about your plans for retirement doesn’t mean you actually have to have one.

Why I Stopped Teaching and Don't Miss It

It turns out that what a retired professor loves most about academe is not leading a classroom but learning.

Annals of Retirement

How did I find the time to go to work?

After 40 years Changing My Academic Major

A former university president has retired — but only from the chief executive's office.

Giving Up Tenure? Who Does That?

As it turns out, quite a few professors leave academe for new careers.

How can we prevent and deal with sexual assault?

Improving Title IX Panels

Colleges continue to look for ways to make their Title IX hearings fairer. Here's how institutions are rethinking the boards that often decide sexual-assault cases.

Life Inside the Title IX Pressure Cooker

The administrators who handle sexual-misconduct investigations aren't sticking around for long. That's because they have one of the toughest jobs on campus.

How a 'Defunct' Title IX Office and a Culture of Hypermasculinity Fueled a Sexual-Misconduct Problem at Morehouse College

Six Title IX coordinators have worked at the college in the past three academic years. One lasted only a month.

The Honorable but Thankless Work of Leading Sexual-Assault Investigations

Know that even before you begin a campus inquiry, you have already failed in the eyes of students.

Abusers and Enablers in Faculty Culture

Academia is full of Petruchios looking for their next Kate.

Protecting Due Process in Sexual-Assault Cases on Campus

In her speech about reforming sexual-assault policy, Betsy DeVos offered a way forward that should appeal to fair-minded people across political and cultural divides.

Academic Ethics: What Should We Do With Sexual Harassers in Academe?

Should they be barred permanently from teaching?

Is It Harassment Only if It's Sexual?

How to deal with a senior colleague who has 'all the time in the world' when you don’t.

How can I improve my writing?

Scholars Talk Writing

Q&As with Steven Pinker, Laura Kipnis, Jay Parini, Camille Paglia, James M. McPherson, Deirdre McCloskey, and many other scholars talking about their writing process and influences.

Are You Writing?

Advice for graduate students and faculty members on scholarly productivity, with suggestions on how to write more — and better — with less angst.

10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly

Fortunately, the standards of writing in most disciplines are so low that you don't need to write well.

The Art and Science of Finding Your Voice

Advice on how to kickstart the process of finding your writerly voice.

Lessons on the Craft of Scholarly Reading

Yes, you know how to read. But do you know how to read scholarship effectively?

What do I need to know about publishing?

Crafting a Convincing Book Proposal

What to consider as you attempt to persuade book editors to give you a contract.

Why You Need to Create an ‘Author Platform’

If you want people to read your book, you’re going to have to do some of the work of promoting it.

How to Craft a Pitch

Six tips to help you draft a pitch for editors and publishers.

Things You Should Know Before Publishing a Book

“You can probably make more money having a first-class yard sale.”

Some Things I Know About Getting Published

Seek out criticism, be nice to assistants, and other publishing lessons.

Write a Book and Become an Employee of Your Former Self

Publishers are using content-driven approaches to connect readers directly with authors.

Dear First Time Author

How to turn your dissertation into your first book.

How to Arrange Your Own Academic Book Tour

Your publisher is unlikely to set up a tour for you. Here’s how one pair of professors did it.

What should I expect during the revise-and-resubmit process?

Coping With Criticism from Manuscript Readers

Negative feedback hurts. The trick is learning to take it in stride.

How to Decipher Reviewer Comments

Making sense of hortatory comments from manuscript readers.

Techniques for Easier and Faster Revisions

How to proceed when reviewers disagree, and other advice.

The 3 Types of Peer Reviewers

Dealing with manuscript reviewers is, by far, the least rewarding and most difficult part of my faculty job.

Why You Gotta Be So Mean?

Too many journal reviewers are needlessly nasty, and critical without being constructive.

How do I cope with writer's block?

How to Cope With Multiple-Project Paralysis

What to do when a writing commitment, made with good intentions, is now standing in your way.

Code-Switching to Improve Your Writing and Productivity

What are the benefits of working on multiple projects in different genres at once?

6 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block

It's not a question of whether you will get stuck, but of what to do when it happens.

The Habits of Highly Productive Writers

There are no tricks to make writing easier, just practices you can develop to get it done.

OK I Admit It: Productivity Is Overrated

Sometimes it's OK to be lazy.