What can we learn when we follow people over the years and across the course of their professional lives? Joseph C. Hermanowicz asks this question specifically about scientists and answers it here by tracking fifty-five physicists through different stages of their careers at a variety of universities across the country. He explores these scientists’ shifting perceptions of their jobs to uncover the meanings they invest in their work, when and where they find satisfaction, how they succeed and fail, and how the rhythms of their work change as they age. His candid interviews with his subjects, meanwhile, shed light on the ways career goals are and are not met, on the frustrations of the academic profession, and on how one deals with the boredom and stagnation that can set in once one is established.An in-depth study of American higher education professionals eloquently told through their own words, Hermanowicz’s keen analysis of how institutions shape careers will appeal to anyone interested in life in academia.

Product Description: The academic profession, like many others, is rapidly being transformed. This book explores the current challenges to the profession and their broad implications for American higher education.Examining what professors do and how academia is changing, contributors to this volume assess current and potential threats to the profession...read more

Product Description: Hermanowicz asks an important question: Why do college student departure rates vary among elite institutions of higher learning in the United States? This book breaks new ground as this question has not been previously explored in an empirical way...read more

Product Description: Based on sixty interviews with physicists at universities across the United States, The Stars are Not Enough offers a detailed and intimate account of the worlds in which scientists work. Joseph C. Hermanowicz looks at a range of scientists from young graduate students to older professionals well into their careers...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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