The Academic Gateway - (Education) by Timothy Sibbald & Victoria Handford (Paperback)

About the Book

This collection written by professors experiencing the journey to tenure in education puts the reader in the writer's shoes to provide insight for those who are considering this path, as well as for policy makers.

Book Synopsis

The Academic Gateway: Understanding the Journey to Tenure investigates the experiences of professors employed in tenure-track positions who are starting their career within a university environment, but have not yet attained the affirmation and permanence that tenure offers. The role that they have taken on entails the preparation of students within a professional school. Some of them have very limited professional experience, while others bring multiple years of experience with them in their transition to a faculty of education.

The contributors speak to the three key components of their faculty role: teaching, service, and research. Addressing organizational structures and differences relative to prior roles, they examine how these changes
have assisted, confused or altered the way they conduct their day-to-day work. They speak about relevant prior experiences, the preparation they received through graduate school, and the details of the learning curve as they entered into their tenure track role.

Have they been successful? The reader will experience the same uncertainty and anticipation every professor goes through during their journey to tenure. This approach amplifies the realism of not knowing whether issues that are spoken about will ultimately be overcome and enhances the validity of their experiences by not biasing the contributions towards those who expect success.

Published in English.

Part of the Lives in the Canadian Academic Landscape series.

Review Quotes

The personal tone of the narratives (...) stood out as a strength (...) and helped to bind the book together as a whole; while each chapter reflected on a different set of experiences, (it) read as an anthology of connected storylines.--Summer Cowley "Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy, 196, 128-130"

The slow and subtle buildup of anxiety provoked by reading "backward" in time through the tenure track process will be unsettlingly relatable for academics on their own tenure-track trek.-- "PUO-UOP"

About the Author

Cecile Badenhorst (Contributor)
Cecile Badenhorst is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education in the Adult/Post-Secondary programs at Memorial University. She teaches courses on academic literacies and adult teaching. She has published three books in this area: Research Writing (2007), Dissertation Writing (2008), and Productive Writing (2010).

Lee Anne Block (Contributor)
Lee Anne Block is a teacher educator at the University of Winnipeg. Her research and teaching are focused on how we name and engage with difference in educational locations and on cultural sustainability. She recently completed Gandhi, Globalization and Earth Democracy, a course on sustainability with Vandana Shiva, in residence at Navdanya, India. For twenty years, she was a classroom teacher in Winnipeg.

Joan Chambers (Contributor)
Joan Chambers is a Professor in the Faculty of Education at Lakehead University.

Cam Cobb (Contributor)
Cam Cobb teaches in the Faculty of Education and Academic Development at the University of Windsor. His research focuses on such topics as social-justice issues in special education, co-teaching in adult-learning contexts, and narrative pedagogy in the arts.

Frank Deer (Contributor)
Frank Deer is an Assistant Professor and current Director of Indigenous Initiatives in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba. Frank holds an earned PhD in Educational Administration from the University of Saskatchewan and is published in the area of Indigenous education. Frank has been awarded funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for his work in ancestral languages. He is the current President of the Canadian Association for the Study of Indigenous Education.

Timothy Sibbald (Editor)
Timothy Sibbald is Professor of mathematics education in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. His research interests include a variety of aspects of mathematics education and lived experiences in academia. He has examined historical trends in math education, developed a framework for STEM education, and is developing a broad interpretation of interdisciplinary learning. He has edited and co-edited four books. Tim is a long-standing editor of the Ontario Mathematics Gazette. He lives in North Bay, Ontario, Canada.

Victoria Handford (Editor)
Victoria (Tory) Handford is Professor of education leadership in the School of Education at Thompson Rivers University. She is past chair of the School of Education and served six years as the Coordinator of Graduate Programs. Her research has spanned many areas, but primarily rests in JK-12 school and district leadership. She has edited and co-edited five books. Her current research involves internationally experienced teachers and their successes in the K-12 school system in Canada. She lives in Kamloops, British-Columbia, Canada.