Books to boost your career in higher education
- Cam Bestwick
- Dec 1, 2022
- 13 min read
Recently, a new starter in my team asked me this question:
"I would like to have a career in higher education and, more specifically, in a student services area like residential life. So what should I be reading to steepen my learning curve?"
It's a conventional question that has a surprising answer: after looking around and not finding anything, I realised there isn't a go-to reading list for someone in his position.
And because I'm quite vocal about how important I think reading is to a career, especially in a field like education (and I hasten to add: the scarcer reading becomes, the more important I think reading will become), I decided to make my own list of reading recommendations here.
How to use this list
This is not intended to be the go-to list for new professionals. Firstly, I am not even close to being qualified to write the list. And secondly, any attempt to write the list would fly in the face of what I see as the need for people to be self-directed in their reading program, taking lots of suggestions yes — but only suggestions — about what to read (see the postscript for a short elaboration on this).
Instead, this list is more of a starter kit. It's a series of suggestions about where to start looking if you were looking to expand your an understanding of these topics beyond what you've directly experienced, which is inherently limited:
Mostly these are books that had that effect on me, by explaining something really well or by sparking some new type of thinking in me that I would never have experienced without the help of the book.
I encourage you to be critical in selecting what books you might read from this list. These are only suggestions after all, and you are on your own journey.
My top 3 recommendations
These three 'top' suggestions are books that not only had a big impact on my thinking, but also really surprised me with how helpful or insightful they were. They may not end up topping your own lists, but I hope they jolt your thinking as well.
How Colleges Work
The Cybernetics of Academic Organization and Leadership
By Robert Birnbaum
I read this book because it is a cult favourite and its fans absolutely rave about it. I would go further and say it is actually one of the only classics in its field. To briefly explain what I mean, a classic is a work of supreme quality that stands the test of time, and this book provides the reader with some timeless conceptualisations of how higher ed institutions can be organised and managed. It also applies these conceptualisations to a set of wonderfully rich case studies of invented institutions (which are intended to be archetypes of the different philosophies underpinning organisational design). Taken together, the book is so total in its coverage of 'how colleges work' that it will surely live on as a valuable text for many years to come. My own reading of the book wasn't until 2022, which is more than 30 years after it was written!
Cultural Foundations of Learning
East and West
By Jin Li
I've heard it said that culture functions like a fishbowl. It's really hard to observe your own culture from the inside, and it's much easier to observe another culture when you're outside it. This book really opened my mind to my how culturally filtered my ideas of education were. It took me out of my fishbowl and highlighted that so much of what I thought of as simply "education" or "learning" was in fact "Western education" and "Western learning." Li provides an excellent mapping of the similarities and differences between Eastern and Western approaches to learning and, ever since reading it, I have come to think of the 'best' approach to learning (if such a thing exists) as being a blend of the two. One flaw in the book is the level of detail seems to jump around a lot from chapter to chapter — gliding over a vast body of literature one minute, and wading into dense detail about an individual study in the next — but that is certainly a very minor drawback in the scheme of things. It's an excellent read.
Bonus Book:
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Excellent Sheep
The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
by William Deresiewicz
I don't know if you've ever had that feeling where you can sense a problem, but you struggle to articulate it, so it stays in the recesses of your mind, slowly gnawing away at you? For me, one of those problems was how commonplace — and even casual — it was becoming for students to try to 'hack' their way through the education system instead of just taking the amazing education on offer to them. This book does an extraordinary job of articulating the problem. While I appreciate this book was topical at the time of writing (2014) and will eventually decline in relevance, this book had a big impact on me and I think it still has a lot to offer anyone working in higher education today. It's beautifully written and an absolute pleasure to read. I highly recommend it.
Books on higher education management
I would place How Colleges Work (above) in this category.
The End of College
Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Everywhere
By Kevin Carey
This book is essentially a case for why the most common university model, which has dominated the landscape for a very long time now (called the "hybrid university"), is starting to break down. It's a great read for a few reasons. First, it's always a good thing to challenge your assumptions — especially ones that lead you believe you have a safe and stable career ahead of you — and stay alert to the notion that higher education, like any other 'industry', will evolve through the process of creative destruction. Second, the examples of emerging disruptors sparked some creative thinking for me about why we do what we do. And finally, the first few chapters actually provide a brilliant account of the history of universities, and how they evolved to become what they are today. The book will age as the examples of disruptors either become incumbents or forgotten, but it was an easy read well worth the time.
Wannabe U
Inside the Corporate University
By Gaye Tuchman
This book is essentially a monograph of a state university in the U.S (anonymised) whose senior administrators have been seduced into playing the rankings game. The book traces the way those administrators go about making that university more centralised and more commercially orientated in the way it operates, which they see as the primary means to advance its standings in the rankings. Wannabe U stands is a welcome exception to other books describing the growing marketisation of universities, which all examine the phenomenon at the macro level (though I should mention that first few scene-setting chapters give a nice broad overview of the forces that have led universities down this path). This book is a story. And it's the nitty gritty details of how the game plays out that gives us a graphic picture of how it affects the individual humans involved. My only criticism of the book is it does not give voice to the student experience anywhere in the book, it's entirely about the staff experience.
Bonus books If you are really interested in the growing marketisation of universities more generally, there's a lot of material out there, but I recommend starting with the works of Derek Bok, former President of Harvard University. |
Books on evolving student expectations
I would put Excellent Sheep (above) in this category.
The Coddling of the American Mind
How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure
By Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt
Like many others working in the higher education, for years I was observing a mounting level of fragility in the students entering the system, but I wasn't sure what else to think about it. In fact, I wasn't really thinking about it at all — it was just a vague concern swirling around the back of my mind. Then I read this this book, which puts a solid structure around the problem, describes the extent of it, and maps out some directions toward solving it. I suspect this book won't be the only good text to read in this area, it's just the first. It has done the crucial task of starting the conversation, which makes it an essential read for anyone concerned about this phenomenon.
Why Teach?
In Defense of a Real Education
By Mark Edmundson
I think this book is the forerunner to Excellent Sheep above where Edmundson, also a long-time teacher of undergrads, sharply brings into focus the watering down of higher education. What I can't get past with this book it is just so well written it is a delight to read and easy to get lost in. I can't really say it better than this praise for the book on Amazon “In prose so fresh and personal that it leaps off the page, Mark Edmundson launches a stinging critique of higher education today. Everywhere he sees teachers flattering students, confirming their prejudices, and training them for the success game rather than opening their minds to new ways of looking at the world..." (Morris Dickstein, author of Gates of Eden and Dancing in the Dark).
Well said.
Books on student affairs & student services
Student Development in College
Theory, Research and Practice
By Lori D Patton, Kristen A Renn, Florence M Guido, and Steven John Quaye
The existence of the book is perhaps what is greatest about it. A catalogues the different theories and models of student development and sorts them into paradigmatic and other categories. For me, the value of reading the book was in the awareness the reader gains of the vast theoretical landscape, which is a more expansive and uneven terrain than I expected. It also does a good job of signposting where they all come from, so you can go get a deeper understanding of the models that interest you the most.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Traditional and Innovative Models of Student Affairs Practice
By Kathleen Manning, Jillian Kinzie, and John H Schuh
Too often in student affairs practitioners get too attached to their favourite theories and models and, forgetting that all models are just tools in the toolbox, can find themselves trying to brute force them in situations where they don't really fit (which always ends in tears). This book is a great reminder that there is no 'right' way for approach student affairs, only what's right for the institution where it's occurring. It gives a good history of student affairs before examining, in turn, a set of well-established approaches to it ("traditional") as well as some emerging approaches ("innovative"). A takeaway for me was that nearly every model has a kernel of goodness to it, which has the potential to make a meaningful difference, if skillfully applied to the right situation.
Student Success in College
Creating Conditions that Matter
By George D. Kuh, Jillian Kinzie, John H. Schuh and Elizabeth J. Whitt
This book offers something different to many of the others in the student affairs space. Where others concentrate on defining and describing a kind of minimum professional baseline for student affairs practice — an exercise in standardisation — this one tumbles down the rabbit hole of 'so what exactly happens at the twenty schools that have the highest levels of student engagement in America?' Instead of working forwards from theory, it works backwards from practice. It is a book of case studies, giving a rich account of what it's like on the ground at institutions where student engagement in campus life is palpable. The book is definitely worth reading if you feel like you've never worked or studied at an institution that had that special buzz about it. And for other any reader, adding twenty more real world instantiations to your 'mental library' of how students get deeply engaged in their education isn't such a bad thing either!
Learning Everywhere on Campus
Teaching Strategies for Student Affairs Professionals
Edited by Jane Fried and Ruth Harper
Like a lot of academic books, this one didn't give me what I was looking for (see callout box below about how these books can be hit and miss), but that by no means makes it a 'bad' book. While the book is written for student affairs practitioners seeking to understand its links to pedagogy, I think a better audience for it is those people who are relatively new to student affairs (or student services), and in particular, practitioners who have only had the opportunity to work in one service line (for instance: maybe you've done wellbeing programs for a while, but you've never had any exposure to how careers advising works). Between them, the component chapters of the book provide good coverage of the different facets of student affairs but each one is really just tapas. You can get a taste but you can't really fill up on it.
A note on using academic books as a practitioner I find that, in general, academic books (not teaching resources, but pure academic books) are not a single body of work, but a really just an assembly of 'chapters' that, if they were not published together, would have has more impact as feature articles in trade journals and news websites. These chapter-articles things tend to be much more closely coupled with the author's prior work than the topic of the book which leaves me feeling like the content of the book didn't 'answer' the central question implied by the title. Like each contributing author danced around the edges of the topic but none took to it directly. |
Books on student residences
Student Learning in College Residence Halls
What works, What Doesn't and Why
By Gregory S Blimling
If you are starting out in residence hall management, start with this book.
It's so important when trying to learn about a new domain to seek out the fundamentals, and that's exactly what this book provides. First of all, it does such a great job of framing the raison d'etre of university residential halls (which student learning by the way) and giving a layered account of the context (like, for example, asking what's typically happening in the brains of 18-24 years olds?). As you further into the book, it gets less universal and more US-centric. But even then, it's fairly important to understand the U.S. model because so much of the literature is anchored in it. Altogether, this one a clear entry point for anyone interested in residential education.
The Evolving Landscape of Residential Education
Enhancing Students' Learning in University Residential Halls
Edited by Samuel Kai Wah Chu, Kevin Kin Man Yue, Christina Wai-Mui Yu, Elaine Suk Ching Liu, Chun Chau Sze
This is a book that I wish existed when I was starting out.
As I mentioned about academic books in Learning Everywhere on Campus above, it's impossible to describe the overall relevance or usefulness of these books, because the chapters are typically standalone texts that don't really 'roll up' into an overall core idea. Nonetheless, most of the chapters in this book are very effective at conveying what they set out to. Moreover, most of them actually under-promised and over-delivered in that regard, which made me kept pulling me through the book at a much faster pace than I normally would for a scholarly book. Personally I found great value in chapters 1, 2, 8, 13, and 14.
Advice for Advisers
Empowering your Residence Hall Association
Edited by Norbet W Dunkel and Cindy L Spencer
I firmly believe that a residents association is the fulcrum to creating really compelling residential halls. Every hall I've seen that has huge levels of student commitment also has a mature and high-functioning residents association. Conversely, I'm yet to find a really vibrant, high-energy hall where the residents association is weak or absent. So while I can't prove the link, I think it's there. Nurturing residents associations also have the biggest risk-reward equation of all the pursuits in residential life — it's probably the hardest thing to get right, but has the biggest payoff when you do get it right. Needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled when I discovered someone had written a whole textbook on the subject. The book is well-organised and allows you to get what you need from it. It also fully spans the gap from abstract concepts down practical tips and tricks — with each chapter having templates you could lift and shift straight into your institution. The only other thing to say about this resource is a warm "thank you" to ACUHO-I for creating it!
Campus Housing Management
(six volume set)
Edited by Norbert W. Dunkel, James Anderson Baumann
I must admit upfront I haven't read the whole set of these books yet. A few years ago, I had access to them through a colleague who kept his own set in the office and allowed me to peruse them. This collection is, at its heart, an elaboration of the ACUHO-I "core competencies", which is the full suite of capabilities a campus housing outfit needs to have to be sustainably effective over time (according to the global professional association ACUHO-I, whose opinion on the matter isn't too shabby). In the time when I did have access to the books, I read two of these volumes cover-to-cover and I found them to be valuable. I also thumbed through some others and got the impression they would be very valuable when I encountered those functional areas (but didn't get the opportunity to come back to the books before that happened). Taken together, these books are definitely reference materials because not many people need to be across ALL the functional areas in such depth, but for the volume most relevant to your current day job, I'd strongly recommend a complete read of it.
Books to recommend to your students
The Five Elements of Effective Thinking
By Edward D Burger and Michael Starbird
I really love this book.
Although the optimal audience for the book is probably a high school student, there's no reason a university student wouldn't get just as much benefit from reading it. When I read it in my mid-20s, I had mixed emotions: part of me despaired that I didn't get to read anything like this a decade earlier, with the other part of me being grateful that I got to read it at all. The book is a short and easy read that explains how just five mental habits, if made automatic, can massively sharpen up your thinking. The authors also 'walk the talk' too, wrapping up the five habits in an elegant and memorable metaphor, that connects beautifully to the title of the book. In fact, of the hundreds of non-fiction books I've read, this is the one I've remembered the most material from.
So Good They Can't Ignore You
Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love
By Cal Newport
I find myself recommending this book a lot, as I think it's full of incredibly painful-but-valuable advice to anyone who is relatively early in their career and grew up at any stage after the advent of positive psychology (so perhaps anybody under the age of 35 today). It does the important job of questioning the wisdom behind the ubiquitous advice to 'follow your passion' and offers up an alternative model for how you can build yourself a career that gives you autonomy and a strong sense of purpose without a foolhardy expedition into your (let's face it, temporary) passions as young adult. The book is really short and focused, interweaving its arguments with illustrative vignettes the whole way through. I don't just recommend this book, I live it! I have a one page summary of this book that I revisit every few months to keep reminding myself of its message.
Reference books
Or, in other words, books that may not be worth reading cover-to-cover, but are definitely worth having on hand!
How College Affects Students
21st Century Evidence that Higher Education Works
by Matthew J. Mayhew, Alyssa N. Rockenbach, Nicholas A. Bowman, Tricia A. D. Seifert, Gregory C. Wolniak, Ernest T. Pascarella, and Patrick T. Terenzini.
This book is comprehensive in the true sense of the word and is one of the only books on this list I would describe as a seminal work. It reviews and synthesises the evidence on "how college affects students" on a scale that utterly dwarfs other books. The book is updated every ten years and it currently in its 3rd edition (and when a new edition comes out, my advice is to get a copy, as that will become the new authoritative text to have). The book is obviously a tough one to read in its entirety, and given it goes so deep into so many areas, that's unlikely to be the best use of your time anyway. But there is something superbly comforting about having a copy of this book on your desk, which then allows you to consult 'the literature' on different aspects of the student experience as they arise.
Key Concepts in Adult Education and Training
By Malcolm Tight
Before tucking into any meaty discussions about the features of higher education practice, it's wise idea to sample the different definitions and conceptions out there of the thing you are about to discuss. For example if you were wondering 'do we provide quality education here?' you and your discussion buddy might actually have entirely different ideas of what "education" is, what "quality" means, how those fit together to make "quality education". You'd also probably struggle to agree on how to evaluate it too! This kind of definition sampling is especially important before engaging in any kind of conflict or debate where, a failure to do so could be unproductive and sew discord in your team. This book performs a close inspection on a whole range of everyday-but-potentially-contentious terms used in adult education and training. It really highlighted for me how assumption- and value-laden these terms are. Having a copy in sight of your workstation reminds us that most of the terms we throw around day-to-day do not have a well-established or -accepted definition, but are contested and evolving concepts.
Postscript:
Why isn't there already an established book list? While there are some 'listicles' out there that have a short blurb on an odd number of books (like '19 books experts recommend on [topic]' — I think you know the ones). They usually look like cynical attempts at web traffic generation, and are rarely curated to help someone develop their career. But that doesn't fully explain why a better list is missing, which I think has more to do with how people enter a profession like student affairs. In the U.S. there is a well-defined body of literature, which most U.S. professionals become familiar with via highly structured masters degrees and ongoing professional development (two things which aren't strictly required or available outside the U.S.). So the challenge with using this body of literature elsewhere is, unsurprisingly, that it's highly fitted to the U.S. context, and is not readily applicable to other countries where things might operate differently. But this is not a bad thing for those people. Far from it! Being outside the intended audience for most of the literature produces a much deeper understanding over the long-run. Initially your learning process is slower, which can be frustrating, but it also makes for a more critical one. No text can be swallowed whole. It has to be pulled apart and chewed on to find the best bits. Those bits then need to be combined with the other good bits from other texts into a more 'alloyed' mental schema of how higher education works that will surely end up being more robust and useful over time. |
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