Five useful books for (new) faculty

August is here, which means the start of the fall semester can’t be far away. Whether you are starting a new job (someone must have one, right?), starting to think about tenure, or just looking to find a fresh way through the year, these books can help:

• Donald Hall, The Academic Self: An Owner’s Manual (Ohio State UP, 2002).Merges the theoretical, the practical, and the frankly inspirational, showing how a ruthless attention to time-management, coupled with thoughtful reflection on one’s goals, can free us to have the career we always wanted. (And while Hall now holds an endowed chair at a major research school, for many years he taught at a 4-4 university, so he’s familiar with the range of academic careers.)
• John A. Goldsmith, John Komlos, and Penny Schine Gold, The Chicago Guide to Your Academic Career: A Portable Mentor for Scholars from Graduate School through Tenure (U of Chicago P, 2001). What’s nice about this work is that it’s written as a conversation among these three prominent scholars and administrators. As a result, they’re able to punch up their advice with specific examples of how particular strategies work (or don’t!).
• Mary Burgan, Whatever Happened to the Faculty?: Drift and Decision in Higher Education (Johns Hopkins UP, 2006, [paper: 2009]). Some people will say that junior faculty need to focus more on their research, and perhaps their teaching, and downplay service–especially university service. Burgan shows, to the contrary, how important it is to keep an eye on the broader university context, and indeed the context of higher education in general, at all times. Marking time on committees isn’t self-governance; without self-governance, faculty members will quickly lose whatever professional standing they still have.
• Patrick Allitt, I’m the Teacher, You’re the Student: A Semester in the University Classroom (U of Pennsylvania P, 2004).I’m letting Allitt’s book stand in for a whole host of teaching narratives that reflect more broadly on faculty life today...mainly because I think it’s funny and smart. Allitt teaches at Emory, a well-off private university, so his experiences are not typical of most faculty, but he captures the interplay between professors and students quite well.
• A. Leigh Deneef & Craufurd D. Goodwin, The Academic’s Handbook (3rd edition) (Duke UP, 2007). That this book is now in its third edition tells you most of what you need to know. It has a diverse range of contributors, and takes on a much wider range of topics than the other books here–though perhaps not with the depth of some of the others.

A bonus two, which, though unconventional, might well prove helpful in their way:

• AAUP Policy Documents and Reports (10th edition, AAUP, 2006).The famous Redbook of the American Association of University Professors, this book offers recommendations and guidelines for the practice of academic freedom and faculty self-governance. Even if your university doesn’t have an AAUP chapter, these statements carry a certain amount of influence with faculty and administrators.
• James Hynes, The Lecturer’s Tale (Picador, 2002).Everyone knows David Lodge’s novels, and Richard Russo’s Straight Man, but Hynes’s comic horror tale of an adjunct professor granted mysterious powers in a freak accident is one of my favorite depictions of academic life.

What books have been useful to you in your academic career?