Teaching at the People's University: An Introduction to the State Comprehensive University (JB-Anker) - Softcover

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Bruce B. Henderson is professor of psychology at Western Carolina University. He has bachelor's and master's degrees in psychology from Bucknell University and a doctorate in child psychology from the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development. He has received the Botner Superior Teaching Award and the University of North Carolina Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching and is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association. Most of his publications have focused on the development of children's curiosity, memory development, or ways to improve teaching. He participated in the American Psychological Association's St. Mary's Conference on Undergraduate Education and Alverno College's Critical Thinking Network. The Spencer Foundation and the Foundation for Child Development are among the sources that have supported his research. He has worked on a variety of research and training projects with the University of Houston, Northern Kentucky University, the Yale University Child Study Center, the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching, and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

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Among the different kinds of colleges and universities, those known as regional state universities or state comprehensive universities (SCUs) are the most neglected by higher education scholars. These institutions, many with roots in normal schools and teachers colleges, traditionally have been held in low esteem. Yet a high percentage of students receive college degrees from SCUs each year. In many ways it is these universities that have made college degrees available to children of the lower and middle classes. Moreover, SCUs have been willing to provide practical, job-oriented degrees in many fields from education to the health sciences. The state comprehensive universities have been the people's universities.

A high and increasing percentage of America's college professors and administrators work at SCUs, yet there are no available resources specifically directed at newly hired faculty at these institutions. Based on the author's nearly 30 years of experience at SCUs, this book provides new faculty members with a conceptual framework for seeing how their new environment is different from the major research universities where most of them obtained their graduate educations. It discusses the special problems faculty encounter at SCUs, as well as some of the major advantages of working at a comprehensive university over a research university. It also dispels some of the negative and misleading assumptions about academic life at SCUs, helping new faculty avoid role conflict and adapt their expectations to forge rewarding careers that benefit their students and their institutions.