Becoming a Professor - by Marie K Iding & R Murray Thomas (Paperback)

About the Book

The book identifies kinds of higher education institutions, and types of teaching positions along with the nature of each position's responsibilities and advantages and disadvantages. It explains how graduate students can promote their future as faculty members while they are ...

Book Synopsis

The book identifies kinds of higher education institutions, and types of teaching positions along with the nature of each position's responsibilities and advantages and disadvantages. It explains how graduate students can promote their future as faculty members while they are still in graduate school and suggests ways to find suitable faculty positions and succeed at the application and interview process.

Review Quotes

Becoming a Professor is more than a must read for those seeking academic positions, in academic positions, advising those in academic positions (e.g., deans), and for the general public curious about what professors do with all their time if they aren't teaching. Becoming is an easy, marvelous read. It's hard to put down; one's learning curve is steep.


College professors typically do not receive the quantity or quality of the professional development training they need. Becoming a Professor by Marie Iding and Murray Thomas seeks to begin to fill this void by offering a concise, organized, and friendly guide to becoming a successful academic, including a balance of useful basic information about academic life and useful advice based on years of experience.


Comprehensive, exceptionally well organized, thoroughly 'user friendly' in content and presentation, Becoming a Professor: A Guide to a Career in Higher Education should be considered essential reading by anyone considering or aspiring to becoming a career academic. . . .[The book] is a strongly recommended addition to all college and university library Educational Studies reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Had Becoming a Professor been available to my generation, our academic careers could have been not only more productive but much more fulfilling. Just as The Joy of Cooking formed a generation of culinary artists, this book rejuvenates higher education. Professors Iding and Thomas have probed into every aspect of academic life, sifting out the values and skills that make higher education such a rewarding profession.

About the Author

Marie Iding (PhD, University of California, Santa Barbara) is a professor of educational psychology University of Hawai'i at Manoa, where she has taught for over twenty years. She has also taught, and presented research or workshops in diverse locations around the world, including American Samoa, Chuuk (Federated States of Micronesia), Vietnam, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Kenya, Spain, Portugal, Fiji, Australia, Jamaica, Poland and Scotland.

R. Murray Thomas (PhD, Stanford University) is a professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara where he also directed the program in International Education. His list of professional publications exceeds 400, including 59 books for which he served as author, coauthor, or editor.