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Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia
Ms. Mentor, that uniquely brilliant and irascible intellectual, is your all-knowing guide through the jungle that is academia today. In the last decade Ms. Mentor's mailbox has been filled to overflowing with thousands of plaintive epistles, rants, and gossipy screeds. A mere fraction has appeared in her celebrated monthly online and print Q&A columns for the Chronicle of Higher Education ; her readers' colorful and rebellious ripostes have gone unpublished—until now.
Hearing the call for a follow-up to the wildly successful Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia , Ms. Mentor now broadens her counsel to include academics of the male variety. Ms. Mentor knows all about foraging for jobs, about graduate school stars and serfs, and about mentors and underminers, backbiters and whiners. She answers burning Am I too old, too working class, too perfect, too blonde? When should I reproduce? When do I speak up, laugh, and spill the secrets I've gathered? Do I really have to erase my own blackboard? Does academic sex have to be reptilian?
From the ivory tower that affords her an unparalleled view of the academic landscape, Ms. Mentor dispenses her perfect wisdom to the huddled masses of professorial newbies, hardbitten oldies, and anxious midcareerists. She gives etiquette lessons to academic couples and the tough-talking low-down on adjunct positions. She tells you what to wear, how to make yourself popular, and how to decode academic language.
She introduces you to characters you must Professor Pelvic, Dr. Iron Fist, Mr. Upstart Whelp, Dean Titan, Professor McShameless.
In this volume Ms. Mentor once again shares her wide-ranging unexpurgated wisdom, giving tips on bizarre writing rituals, tenure diaries, and time management (Exploding Head Syndrome). She decodes department meetings and teaches you the tricks for getting stellar teaching evaluations.
Raw, shocking, precise, clever, absurd—Ms. Mentor has it all.
Hearing the call for a follow-up to the wildly successful Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia , Ms. Mentor now broadens her counsel to include academics of the male variety. Ms. Mentor knows all about foraging for jobs, about graduate school stars and serfs, and about mentors and underminers, backbiters and whiners. She answers burning Am I too old, too working class, too perfect, too blonde? When should I reproduce? When do I speak up, laugh, and spill the secrets I've gathered? Do I really have to erase my own blackboard? Does academic sex have to be reptilian?
From the ivory tower that affords her an unparalleled view of the academic landscape, Ms. Mentor dispenses her perfect wisdom to the huddled masses of professorial newbies, hardbitten oldies, and anxious midcareerists. She gives etiquette lessons to academic couples and the tough-talking low-down on adjunct positions. She tells you what to wear, how to make yourself popular, and how to decode academic language.
She introduces you to characters you must Professor Pelvic, Dr. Iron Fist, Mr. Upstart Whelp, Dean Titan, Professor McShameless.
In this volume Ms. Mentor once again shares her wide-ranging unexpurgated wisdom, giving tips on bizarre writing rituals, tenure diaries, and time management (Exploding Head Syndrome). She decodes department meetings and teaches you the tricks for getting stellar teaching evaluations.
Raw, shocking, precise, clever, absurd—Ms. Mentor has it all.
272 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 16, 2009
While I didn't read this book cover to cover, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I read the sections that most impacted me - brand spanking new faculty member. Ms. Mentor's wit keeps the flow moving right along. And you can't wait to read the next outrageous question. Sometimes I wonder what happened to people's civility. I am a little worried that reading this book when you start thinking about pursuing a career in academia will scare you off. Who would have thought that erasing the board (or not) after a class could lead to such turmoil! But if you are in a fortunate situation (like I am), then you feel blessed about where you are and want to cling on to that job so much harder.
July 6, 2009
Having reached the end of this book, I am more grateful than ever to be paddling around on my little lily pad in the small pond of the community college. I don't think I could handle all the backstabbing, infighting, raving egomaniacs, and other awful things that apparently come along with being a tenure-track academic. UGH!
April 13, 2017
Outstanding advice.
August 17, 2015
The much more circumspect Cheryl Strayed of academic advice -- practical, anecdotal, honest.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews