The Coach's Guide for Women Professors: Who Want a Successful Career and a Well-Balanced Life

by Rena Seltzer, Frances McCall Rosenbluth (Foreword)

If you find yourself thinking or saying any of the following, this is a book you need to pick up.I know or suspect that I am underpaid, but I hate negotiating. I do everything else first and then write in the time left over.I’m not sure exactly what the promotion requirements are in my department.Since earning tenure, my service load has increased and my research is suffering. I don’t get enough time with my family.This is a practical guide for women in academe – whether adjuncts, professors or administrators – who often encounter barriers and hostility, especially women of color, and generally carry a heavier load of service, as well as household and care responsibilities, than their male colleagues. Rena Seltzer, a respected life coach and trainer who has worked with women professors and academic leaders for many years, offers succinct advice on how you can prioritize the multiplicity of demands on your life, negotiate better, create support networks, and move your career forward. Using telling but disguised vignettes of the experiences of women she has mentored, Rena Seltzer offers insights and strategies for managing the situations that all women face – such as challenges to their authority – while also paying attention to how they often play out differently for Latinas, Black and Asian women. She covers issues that arise from early career to senior administrator positions. This is a book you can read cover to cover or dip into as you encounter concerns about time management; your authority and influence; work/life balance; problems with teaching; leadership; negotiating better; finding time to write; developing your networks and social support; or navigating tenure and promotion and your career beyond.

Genres: Academia, Nonfiction, Self Help, Professional Development

246 pages, Hardcover

First published July 2, 2015

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended by my department mentor and associate dean, I admittedly had reservations thinking this would be a useless self-help-style book. While the content isn't mind-blowing, the activities and resources the book provides are very useful such as: (1) how to write a mission statement, (2) links to lists of pedagogical and assessment strategies, (3) prompts for how to reflect positively on a faculty position, and (4) conversation starters at in-person conferences (whenever those will happen again). While there is content for post-tenure faculty, this book seems to be most useful for pre-tenure faculty.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend sent me this book after I asked her some questions about balancing various academic responsibilities. It has some great, practical advice for all levels of academia; I expect I’ll be returning to this.

[Maya Gopalakrishnan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a great book for any lady in the Academia. Addresses a wide variety of topics starting from making time for writing, teaching tips, worklife balance, administrative skills and finally issues faced at a more senior level including budgeting and handling bad news. It was invested with lot if details and read like an academic work in many places. Didn't find value in many of the so called excercises in the book. 4 stars!

[Lino Verde · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gave advices to junior female (tenure-track) faculty. It has some good advices. My take home message is that prioritizing research (minimizing service/teaching time), ask for help with kids, etc.. I did not finish reading the book because it no longer interested me.

[Erika · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is not bad at all, but I didn't learn anything new. Unlike many of these types of books, it does address a variety of issues such as post-tenure and administrative work.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Disclosure: I worked with Rena as a client when I was in the first few years of my first tenure-track job, and I found her one-to-one advice invaluable.)

The thing I love most about this book is that Seltzer has done a ton of research on faculty career trajectories, so her advice is solidly grounded in empirical evidence (of gender gaps in advancement, salary equity, and student evaluations; data about which work habits and patterns contribute to productivity and professional advancement). She's especially scrupulous in covering the challenges that face minority faculty, on all fronts, and gives some space to the challenges facing interdisciplinary or jointly-appointed faculty. She has a great knack for quickly distilling the research, but then goes beyond to show you how to put that advice to good use in your own career. You don't need to go out and read 6 books about negotiating the job offer; just read the chapter in this book and then work through some of the what if scenarios and role playing exercises that she proposes. (Yes, having a helpful friend or mentor available for those role playing exercises is key to using this book, I think.)

As a pre-tenure faculty, I was surprised to find that I really appreciated the chapters on leadership and life after tenure. It can be hard while you're mired down in the day to day to think that there's anything on the other side of that hurdle. (And most of what I hear from newly-minted female associate professors is hair-raising--about escalating demands for service that completely derails your research productivity.) Seltzer confirms some of those rumors (again: more data), but also suggests concrete and specific ways to manage the burden. I was especially gratified by the chapter on leadership. It's encouraging to think that if/when I get to the other side, I'll be in a position to argue for diversity and help other women colleagues thrive in this crazy system.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book with a group of colleagues over the course of the spring semester. Because I am a college staff member (not a faculty member), some of the content felt less applicable; yet I found the perspective and information quite useful. I appreciated the author's use of vignettes and interviews to demonstrate her points, and the opportunities to apply the content through the Learn More and Into Action call-out boxes.

This will be a useful book to keep around and refer to as needed.