Advice for New Faculty Members

This book was eye opening for me. This book has that intangible magic, where it is so much greater than the sum of its parts. After finishing this book, it was filled with my bookmarks of places to revisit. I still often am thinking about and re-digesting the ideas in this book. At its face, this book is trumpeting a 'write-every-day' strategy for productivity. But by my read, this book is actually about meditation. The prose is even meditative in nature. Boice wants us to see how we can use meditative ideas to improve our writing productivity and quality. However, I can imagine that the readers who are not into his ideas will complain about how repetitive it is. But, part of meditation is repetition, and thus this structure only adds to the books mystique. Anyone who is in a creative field, not just academics, would benefit from reading this book. For me, following Boice's advice to the letter of the law will never work for me, but I have implemented many of his strategies into my writing process, and I am reaping the benefits. So incredibly happy I came across this book.

When will someone reprint this book? Every academic I know who has read it has found it very helpful. Too bad used copies are like $50 at this point. The advice really covers every aspect of an assistant professor's professional life. As such, it will have something for everyone. My writing habits were already strong, but the tips on writing lectures made my presentations more focused and comprehensible to my students... and saved me a ton of time and anxiety. My partner had teaching down but used Boice's advice to develop a writing habit and now manages to get some research done even on teaching days (which he had never even attempted before). My friend C sought out a mentor on the strength of Boice's findings, something that wouldn't otherwise have occurred to him, and which has given him a much deeper understanding of the personalities and politics of our Department than I have. And my friend F had to read it twice but she has finally managed to start declining some of those extra administrative and teaching tasks that she always thought she had to say yes to! The real strength of this book is of course that it's data-driven. A lot of the advice (such as the lecture prep advice that so helped me) is not intuitive. I'm not sure you'd find it anywhere else. And Boice really understands all the psychic problems that can hold new faculty back--from panic to defensiveness to depression to simple cluelessness.

Lots of very useful advice in here for dealing with the more psychological aspects of being a new professor. Trying to follow all of Boice's maxims when you are just starting out is probably impossible, like drinking out of a firehose. If you choose nothing else, his advice on dealing with writing is excellent. In general, it's missing some things that would be relevant to new professors in science/engineering who run labs of graduate students--take a look at At the Helm (Kathy Barker, Cold Spring Harbor Press, 2012).

In an earlier book, First-order Principles for College Teachers, Bob Boice advised us to moderate classroom incivilities, learn to begin before feeling ready, appreciate the value of waiting, and work in short reflexive intervals. In this latest book, Boice expands his focus to the other aspects of a productive and emotionally satisfying scholarly career. He begins with teaching and then goes on to write about non-teaching activities. In masterful strokes, he lays out the case for mindful work as the key to teaching, writing, and service. Boice urges us to focus on the process of working, rather than its products. We need to work with constancy and moderation, rather than in hypermanic bursts that ultimately burn us out. Moderation is the key, and Boice makes the case with persuasive arguements and excellent examples. I felt my own tension draining away even as I read the book! I have put his principles into practice in my own work, and I will buy copies for all my graduate students, so they can do the same. This is a wonderful, wise, and witty book.

I'm not quite finished with this, but I'm already putting some of the mindful writing tips into practice, and I think it's really helping boost my productivity as I face a busy load on the tenure track. Some of the advice is a little repetitive, and the tips for teaching and writing are essentially the same, but I have enjoyed reading it and am happily incorporating the much-needed advice. This book gives very general advice on working styles to increase productivity, so I think it would be useful for dissertation writers, post-docs, and others. For tips on specific techniques in college teaching, aspects of the tenure process, etc., seek other references.

I was looking for advice but I did not expect the advice from this book to be as life changing as it has been. Boice advises the reader to practice moderation in writing, teaching, service, and most importantly -- emotion. the book is well structured, has great exercises and strategies to implement into one's life and is backed by substantial research. The best advice. A great read I'll come back to and suggest to many others.

I'm in the second year of a tenure track position, and it's really true that the universal social expectation is that getting tenure, especially the process of writing for publication, involves a whole lot of suffering, and that only the strong (definitely not including me) survive. Robert Boice has written a deeply spiritual and inciteful book not only about the tenure process and academic writing, but about how to live life mindfully and joyfully. I cannot recommend this book too highly.

This is one of the best books on the market for those emerging from graduate school and seeking tenure. Boice provides numerous examples of prolific and successful writers and teachers who do not adopt hasty and ineffective habits leading to a chaotic and stressful career and life, but rather use a steady yet practical approach that results in excellent productivity on every front. Boice's Nihil Nimus (nothing in excess) approach has revolutionized my writing and work habits.

New duties at the university require change in approach to life and work. This balance is quite often disturbed in favor of work, which does not always bring good results. This book contains advice from people who walked that path before you. On one hand it is nothing unexpected, on the other it is reassuring to know that there is a way to balance work and life at the university.