It S All Academic

Mark Carter barely has time to dump his personal belongings into his office in the administration building at Boan University when Dean Hartleys lifeless body is found lying in a pool of blood. A booming, narcissistic voice is silenced forever just as Carter is about to begin his new role as provost. While police roam the campus looking for clues as to who killed the dean, Carter attempts to seek out rationality in the often irrational world of higher education administration. Armed only with a sense of humor and an ancient cell phone, Carter steps into a universe of endless meetings, inflated egos, and inane policies and soon becomes disillusioned with a college administration more focused on a dunk-the-mascot event during spirit week than on a much-needed library renovation. The real mystery at Boan University is not, who killed Dean Hartley? Its how does anything get done and can Provost Carter survive? Its All Academic presents a lighthearted and highly entertaining account of one mans ill-fated year as he immerses himself in the often unpredictable, image-building life that surrounds the world of higher education.

Educators, politicians, parents, and even students are consumed with speaking the language of academic achievement. Yet something is missing in the current focus on accountability, standardized testing, and adequate yearly progress. If schools continue to focus the conversation on rigor and accountability and ignore more human elements of education, many students may miss out on opportunities to discover the richness of individual exploration that schools can foster. In The Best Schools, Armstrong urges educators to leave narrow definitions of learning behind and return to the great thinkers of the past 100 years—Montessori, Piaget, Freud, Steiner, Erikson, Dewey, Elkind, Gardner—and to the language of human development and the whole child. The Best Schools highlights examples of educational programs that are honoring students' differences, using developmentally appropriate practices, and promoting a humane approach to education that includes the following elements: * An emphasis on play for early childhood learning. * Theme- and project-based learning for elementary school students. * Active learning that recognizes the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of adolescents in middle schools. * Mentoring, apprenticeships, and cooperative education for high school students. Educators in "the best schools" recognize the differences in the physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual worlds of students of different ages. This book will help educators reflect on how to help each student reach his or her true potential, how to inspire each child and adolescent to discover an inner passion to learn, and how to honor the unique journey of each individual through life.

Going to university or college is supposed to be “the best time of your life” ... but what if it’s not? Research reveals that mental health issues are on the rise among undergrads, but many are not accessing help. If this is relatable, this book is for you. It addresses common sources of distress – including academic, social, parental, and financial pressures – and shows you how to meet those challenges head-on and where to turn for extra support. Packed with self-care strategies, quick tips, and eye-opening facts, this is an indispensable guide for anyone on the path to a degree.

A JUNE INDIE NEXT PICK "A smart and lively novel." —Jess Walter, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Ruins "Austenesque...this goes down as easily as an Aperol spritz." —Publishers Weekly With her keen eye for human foibles and emotional truth, humor and deep feeling, acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Therese Anne Fowler delivers a stylish, insightful take on the dysfunctional family dramedy. Meet the Geller sisters: Beck, Claire, and Sophie, a trio of strong-minded women whose pragmatic mother, Marti, will be dying soon. Beck, the eldest, is a freelance journalist whose marriage has long been devoid of passion, and she's recently begun to suspect that her husband, Paul, is hiding something from her. Though middle sister Claire is an accomplished pediatric cardiologist, her own heart is a mess, and her unrequited love for the wrong man is slowly destroying her. And while Sophie, the youngest, appears to have an Instagram-ready life of glamorous work and travel, her true existence is a cash-strapped house of cards that may fall at any moment. But Marti’s will surprises them with its provision that the family’s summer cottage in Maine must be sold, the proceeds split equally between the three sisters. While there’s a ready buyer in C.J. Reynolds, he’s an ex-con with a complicated past and a tangled history with one of the women. Choices and consequences, mistakes and misapprehensions, obligations and desires: before long, everyone in this cast of indelible characters will have to come to terms with the ways their lives have turned out differently than they expected, as well as the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other––and themselves.

What is it like to be a collegian involved in a Christian organization on a public college campus? What roles do Christian organizations play in the lives of college students enrolled in a public college? What are evangelical student organizations’ political agendas, and how do they mobilize members to advance these agendas? What is the optimal equilibrium between the secular and the sacred within public higher education? What constitutes safe space for evangelical students, and who should provide this space? This book presents a two-year ethnographic study of a collegiate evangelical student organization at a public university, authored by two “non-evangelicals.” The authors provide a glimpse into the lives of college students who join evangelical student organizations and who subscribe to an evangelical way of life during their college years. They offer empirically derived insights as to how students’ participation in a homogeneous evangelical student organization enhances their satisfaction of their collegiate experience and helps them develop important life lessons and skills. Ironically, while Christian students represent the religious majority on the campus under study, Christian organizations on this campus mobilize members by capitalizing on members’ shared sense of marginalization, and position themselves as cultural outsiders. This evangelical student organization serves as a safe space for students to express their faith within the larger secular university setting.The narratives and interpretations aim not only to enrich understanding of a particular student organization but more importantly to spark intellectual discourse about the value of faith-based organizations within public higher education. The role of religion in public higher education, student involvement in the co-curriculum, and peer education are three examples of critical issues in higher education for which this idiosyncratic case study offers broad understanding. It’s All About Jesus! targets multiple audiences – both sacred and secular. For readers unfamiliar with evangelical collegiate organizations and the students they serve, the authors hope the narratives make the unfamiliar familiar and the dubious obvious. For evangelicals, the authors hope that the thickly described narratives not only make the familiar, familiar and the obvious, obvious, but also uncover the tacit meaning embedded in these familiar, but seldom examined subculture rituals.The authors hope this book spurs discussion on topics such as campus power and politics, how organizations interact with the secular world around them, and how members can improve their organizations. Additionally, this text urges secular readers in student affairs to consider the many benefits, as well as liabilities, of “parachurches” as co-curricular learning sites on campus.Lastly, given that the authors lay bare their methodology, their use of theory, and the tensions between their perspectives and those of the participants, this book will serve as a compelling case study for courses on qualitative research within religion studies, anthropology, sociology, and cultural studies fields.

A field guide to living in the academic trenches without losing your mind (or your heart), Becoming an Academic confirms that—no matter what your experience is in academia—you are not alone.