Navigating Academic Life How the System Works

This engaging collection of recent essays reveals how a professorial career involves not only pursuit of a scholarly discipline but also such unwelcome features as the tribulations of graduate school, the trials of teaching, and the tensions that develop from membership in a department. The author, who enjoyed a distinguished career as a professor of philosophy and senior university administrator, draws on his extensive experience to offer candid advice about handling the frustrations of academic life. Combining philosophical principles, practical concerns, and personal observations, this book serves as a reliable guide for both new and veteran academics as well as for anyone seeking to understand the inner workings of colleges and universities.

Part I: Graduate School; 1. Orientation; 2. Choosing a Dissertation Topic; 3. The Hidden Curriculum; 4. Preparing Graduate Students to Teach; 5. Why Graduate Schools Don’t Have Reunions; Part II: Teaching; 6. Caring about Students; 7. Teaching All the Students; 8. How Teachers Succeed; 9. Teaching and Testing; 10. Teaching and Grading; 11. Improving Teaching; 12. Evaluating Teaching; PART III: Departments; 13. Departmental Life; 14. Faculty Appointments; 15. The Ambiguities of Affirmative Action; 16. Departmental Voting; 17. Interviewing Candidates; 18. Tenure and Academic Freedom; Finale; 19. Expressing Gratitude; 20. My Early Years in Academia

Steven M. Cahn is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate Center, where he served for nearly a decade as Provost and Vice President for Academia Affairs, then as Acting President.