Mapping Your Academic Career: Charting the Course of a Professor's Life

Nijay Gupta's Best Academic NT Books of 2015, Honorable Mention, Academia

You're finishing your first year of teaching. It's been exciting and gratifying, but there've been some wobbly episodes too. How will you carve out a space to flourish? You're feeling secure in mid-career, with some accomplishments to be proud of. But what should success really look like? You're nearing the end of your career, and sometimes apprehensive about the blank slate of retirement. What might it look like to finish well? In Mapping Your Academic Career Gary Burge speaks from decades of teaching, writing and mentoring. Along the way he has experienced and observed the challenges and tensions, the successes and failures of the academic pilgrimage. Now, with discerning wisdom and apt examples, he hosts the conversation he wishes he'd had when he started out as a college professor, identifying three cohorts or stages in the academic career and exploring the challenges, pitfalls and triumphs of each. Wherever you are in your teaching life, this is a book that will reward reading, reflection and discussion.