The Academic Portfolio - (Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education (Paperback)) by Peter Seldin & J Elizabeth Miller (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This comprehensive book focuses squarely on academic portfolios, which may prove to be the most innovative and promising faculty evaluation and development technique in years. The authors identify key issues, red flag warnings, and benchmarks for success, describing the what, why, and how of developing academic portfolios. The book includes an extensively tested step-by-step approach to creating portfolios and lists 21 possible portfolio items covering teaching, research/scholarship, and service from which faculty can choose the ones most relevant to them.

The thrust of this book is unique:

• It provides time-tested strategies and proven advice for getting started with portfolios.
• It includes a research-based rubric grounded in input from 200 faculty members and department chairs from across disciplines and institutions.
• It examines specific guiding questions to consider when preparing every subsection of the portfolio.
• It presents 18 portfolio models from 16 different academic disciplines.

Designed for faculty members, department chairs, deans, and members of promotion and tenure committees, all of whom are essential partners in developing successful academic portfolio programs, the book will also be useful to graduate students, especially those planning careers as faculty members.

From the Back Cover

Praise for The Academic Portfolio

"If faculty heed the suggestions and advice in this book, preparing materials for promotion and tenure will be a much easier task and a far more effective process."
--Mary Lou Higgerson, vice president for academic affairs, Baldwin-Wallace College

"I cannot think of a more timely, useful, and applied tool for faculty and administrators than this comprehensive book by Seldin and Miller."
--Barbara Millis, director of the TEAM Center, University of Texas at San Antonio

"Bravo! Seldin and Miller have done it. Every faculty member should develop a portfolio. Every dean and department chair needs to read this book."
--Walter H. Gmelch, dean, School of Education, University of San Francisco

"When I applied for promotion and tenure, I wish I had known the important lessons of this influential and practical book."
--John Zubizarreta, professor of English, Columbia College, South Carolina

"Seldin and Miller provide an easy-to-use template, guided reflections, and valuable models that chart the course for success."
--Melanie Harris, Department of Religion and Ethics, Texas Christian University

"This book provides broad presentation strategies, helpful prompts for reflection, and portfolio examples from different disciplines that are worth their weight in gold."
--Sheri Spaine Long, chair, Department of Foreign Languages, University of Alabama at Birmingham

"I'll share this book and recommend it to my junior faculty members and others seeking to be promoted."
--Anisa M. Zvonkovic, chair, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Texas Tech University

"A powerful catalyst that helps young academics define their careers with precision and effectively and reflectively accelerate their membership in the academy."
--R. Nowell Donovan, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, Texas Christian University

Review Quotes

"If you plan to read only one book about portfolios, buy this one. Peter Seldin is the author or coauthor of over 16 books about faculty development and evaluation. His most recent books explored the use of portfolios in evaluating teaching or administrative performance. This one is dedicated to the use of the same tool in documenting all three components of a faculty work life, and is addressed both to the preparer and to evaluator of an academic portfolio.

...Even the most faithful of Seldin's readers will find new and updated content among many familiar themes, as well as a change of focus from the evaluator to the preparer of an academic portfolio.

The anecdote at the end of Chapter 6 is telling about the authors' opinion: the time to begin preparing an academic portfolio is now. Start by reading this book to find out why and how!"

--The National Teaching and Learning Forum

About the Author

THE AUTHORS

Peter Seldin is Distinguished Professor of Management Emeritus at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York.

J. Elizabeth Miller is associate professor of Family and Child Studies at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois.