The New Professor's Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Science

by Cliff I. Davidson, Susan A. Ambrose, Herbert A. Simon (Foreword)

This book is an ideal resource for those making the transition from graduate student to new faculty member in engineering and science. Developed through years of use with new faculty, it tackles the two themes that will be constant in a young faculty member’s career: teaching and research. The book first distills the abundant literature that has already been published on teaching, covering student learning and course planning, conducting discussions and lecturing, creating exams and assignments, and working with teaching assistants. Bringing together guidance gained from numerous seminars, discussions, and interviews, and the little existing in current literature on starting and conducting scientific research, the next section includes assembling research teams, supervising graduate research, getting research funding, writing research papers, reviewing research proposals, presenting results, and conducting graduate seminar programs. The book features practical chapter exercises that apply concepts, and it concludes with an extensive bibliography. It will be of help to any faculty member embarking on a teaching and research career in higher education in the sciences.

216 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 1994

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Davidson and Ambrose break down the roles and responsibilities of a professor into Teaching (Part I) and Research (Part II), each with six 15-20 page sections. The easy-to-digest sections stand alone as each contains an introduction with relevant (though slightly dated) research; lists of principles, common techniques, or approaches; reflective exercises you can do; and a summary and cited references. You can easily skip from the section on “Getting Funding for Research Projects” to “Planning a Course” as you wish, and I recommend using the book in this fashion, as it’s taxing to try to absorb and apply the contents of this book all at once. To the want-to-be educator this book is a little premature, though it may give you a heads-up on the trouble spots most faculty face, such as dealing with cheating and difficult behaviors, designing meaningful assessments, and identifying research funding agencies. To the new professor struggling to remember what she learned from her grad program’s Teaching Certificate this book is a must-have resource.