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THE THERAPIST PSYCHOLOGIST BOOK STORE
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Life on the Tenure Track: Lessons from the First Year By James M. Lang ( The Johns Hopkins University Press )
Release Date: 2005-04-06
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List Price: $19.00
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Product Description
In this fast-paced and lively account, Jim Lang asks -- and mostly answers -- the questions that confront every new faculty member as well as those who dream of becoming new faculty members: Will my students like me? Will my teaching schedule allow me time to do research and write? Do I really want to spend the rest of my life in this profession? Is anyone awake in the backrow? Lang narrates the story of his first year on the tenure track with wit and wisdom, detailing his moments of confusion, frustration, and even elation -- in the classroom, at his writing desk, during his office hours, in departmental meetings -- as well as his insights into the lives and working conditions of faculty in higher education today. Engaging and accessible, Life on the Tenure Track will delight and enlighten faculty, graduate students, and administrators alike.
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 Novel ideas for novel teachers ( dilese )
"Life on the Tenure Track" is a refreshingly funny look at the life of a new teacher. Being a new teacher myself, I could easily relate to Lang's story and I think I have been in a lot of the same situations he has faced. While reading this book, I looked back at my own classroom experiences, laughed, and realized, as Lang does in the book, that life goes on. "Life on the Tenure Track" may be about a first year college professor, but any classroom teacher could probably relate to his experiences and lessons learned. Lang helped me realize that as a new teacher and professional student, I do not always have the luxury of finding time to write. The lesson I take from Lang is to create lists of writing ideas and to write about the process of not writing, to write about your experiences.
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 Moderately interesting ( shakespearessarah )
The author provides warm, reflective, from-the-frontlines commentary on being an English professor at a small college who is also a Catholic, a father, a person with chronic health problems, and an unambitious researcher. If not many of those identifiers apply to you, don't bother with this book; it is written from a highly personalized perspective. For more widely applicable help, I recommend Robert Boice's Advice for New Faculty Members or Emily Toth's Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia.
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Wonderfully Interesting and Honest!
James Lang has a gift for writing, and writing honestly. His story is one that anyone within or interested in the academic world can relate to. The telling of his experience draws the reader into both his world while inviting the reader to consider his or her own experience, motivation and challenges.
While this book may be of little interest to those outside the walls of academe, I might be bold enough to suggest that Lang's writing style is such that almost anyone could enjoy reading this book. I recommend this book to a variety of people. First and foremost, this is a must-read for grad students aspiring to tenure-track positions. It is on the list of required reading for junior faculty as well, if only because it provides a beacon of solidarity amid an ocean of rocky trials. Finally, this is - as I alluded earlier - just a superb book that anyone could enjoy. So go ahead and get this today!
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Practical advice, interesting reading ( smesmesme )
Lang does an excellent job describing the job of an assistant professor, as well as documenting an interesting personal journey.
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 Settling in, or just settling? ( no-nickname-please )
I appreciated the very human story, but as someone just starting out on this path, I found it discouraging that the moral of the story seems to be "don't even try to get research done during the term" rather than "try and work with what you have".
From Lang's description, it sounds like he has all the qualities of "slow starters" illustrated in Robert Boice's book _Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus_: he is impatient, overly ambitious in his goals, under-estimates how much time things take, will not work unless he has large blocks of time, allows other things to cut into his research time, and does not try to improve his work habits in realistic ways by taking advantage of the time that he does have. The one time he takes out a project, he tries to tackle it all at once, becomes discouraged by its immensity, and then puts it away. I kept cheering for him to discover better work habits, but he never did.
I did like his lessons about teaching and adapting to one's course, and found it refreshing to hear an honest discussion of the dynamics of departmental politics, and reassuring to hear how he felt initial hesitation to ask for advice, but always got good advice when he asked.
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Addiction
