Weingarden reframes our understanding of Haussmannization, the demolition and rebuilding of the city into a modern metropolis, as witnessed by nineteenth-century Parisians, while also shedding new light on writers’ responses, particularly those of Charles Baudelaire, and of visual artists like Édouard Manet, who contemplated and theorized this modernity and its impact. Using a unique word-and-image methodology, the author illustrates the development of ironic parody as a pictorial device that represents the rupture, fragmentation, and transmutation experienced by the artists and their viewers, revealing how art historians can utilize nineteenth-century neuropsychological practices and current neuroscience methods to reconstruct the lived, embodied experiences of nineteenth-century Paris. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in art history, modern art, urban studies and neuropsychology.

Purchase it in the 2026 TAA Institute for Textbook & Academic Authors Bookstore. 

Join us for the Textbook & Academic Authors Association’s first-ever TAA Institute for Textbook & Academic Authors, designed to support authors across different experience levels. Do a deep dive on topics especially important to you! Registration is now open!

The post 2026 TAA Institute Featured Book, ‘A Neuroarthistory of The Painters of Modern Life: Embodying Baudelairean Modernity’ appeared first on Abstract.

Q: It’s time for me to find a dissertation chair. I’m panicked. How?

—Chairless

A: You’re right to have at least a little trepidation. Here’s what a new “doctor” said in a study of how the choice and behavior of chairs affect doctoral students’ satisfactions:

It is impossible to overestimate the significance of the student-advisor relationship. . . . This is both a personal and professional relationship that rivals marriage and parenthood in its complexity, variety and ramifications for the rest of one’s life. (Zhao et al., 2007, p. 263)

That student echoes what many doctoral candidates learn, with ease or agony, during their dissertation years. Your relationship with your chair (sometimes called advisor or supervisor) is absolutely the most important in your entire doctoral trek. In my many years of coaching and advising doctoral candidates, I have seen too often how the “wrong” chair not only delays dissertation completion and graduation but creates much frustration.

If only there were a ChairMatch.com! But until a completely exasperated doctoral candidate, hopefully not ABD, comes up with such a site or app, you have other options. A few universities assign chairs and committees, usually dependent on their (supposedly) light roster of doctoral students.

More commonly, and more progressively, many universities let you choose your chair. But do your homework! You want to avoid musical chairs—changing chairs too often in the hope of an ever better experience (meaning faster approvals).

So, based on the unfortunate experiences of many of my graduate students, here
are some steps you might take to locate the best doctoral chair you can.

Gather Plenty of Information

Collect as much information as you can from as many sources as you can find.

1. Dig out faculty bios. Access the university/division/school/department website for faculty profiles. These should yield much: the professor’s degree-granting institutions, primary research interests, courses taught, publications, presentations, awards, grants, and journal affiliations. Photographs are often included, and you can see if the professor has kind eyes (not infallible, but it helps). Make sure too the professor isn’t on fourteen university committees (and so no time for you).
2. Stomp in the grapevines of your classmates, other peers, and recent doctors. Their insights and observations about chair reliability and consistency, especially in hindsight, can be invaluable.
3.  Talk to peers who are currently working with chairs you are considering. Over the lunch you buy, ask your peers questions. Do you feel comfortable talking with the chair? How promptly does the chair respond? Does the chair remind you about university deadlines? Are the chair’s critiques more substantial than correcting of typos? Do you feel the chair prompts you to think in greater depth about the topic? Does the chair address you at least civilly?
4. Search out enemy literature. Bruce Shore (2014), a longtime and award-winning professor and advisor to doctoral students, wrote a fine book ostensibly for chairs and advisors, The Graduate Advisor Handbook. In a colloquial, engaging style, he shares advice and cautions. You can learn a lot about what to ask for, expect, and stay away from with your chair and committee. Shore’s perspective, revealed in the subtitle, should cheer you on: A Student-Centered Approach.

More Questions About the Chair

What do you really want to know about a chair? Based on the bio you accessed and other doctoral candidates’ experiences, here are some suggestions.

• Does the professor have the time for you?Are your research interests similar?
• Are you devotees of the same methodologies?

  One chair told the student to use a mixed-method approach, a favorite of the chair. Then, after proposal defense and all the rationales for mixed method, the chair changed it to qualitative, with new rationales, methodology, and more delays.

• Will the chair be—or get to be—knowledgeable about the research in your field?
• Will the chair be responsive to your emails and calls (not that you’re going to be a pest)?
• Will the chair critique your drafts in a reasonable time? Some universities specify 2-week turnarounds; unfortunately, this “rule” is rarely followed.
• Will the chair keep track of your drafts?

  Don’t laugh; one client’s chair kept losing her current drafts, confusing unedited with later edited versions, and repeatedly emailing the client for the latest versions.

• Will the chair be available to you for meetings and generous with time—within reason? (At your meetings, you don’t need to recount your life story or history of previous chairs.)
• Will the chair be encouraging but reasonably “hard” in critiques? A chair who is rude challenges your self-esteem (even more than usual, given the entire process) and is unnecessarily thoughtless. But a chair who is too “easy” does you no favors. Later critiques by committee members and university reviewers can shock you, require massive revisions, and delay graduation. More important, “easy” chair critiques don’t elicit your best work.
• Will the chair be clear in instructions?
• Will the chair be consistent in critiques?

  The chair of one of my students required many changes and additions, which the student (and I) did dutifully. Then, in the next draft, the chair deleted some, added others, repositioned others, and required all the changes in only a few days. The student (and I) drafted a tactful, diplomatic reply requesting more time. Finally, the chair agreed.

• Will the chair be professional and friendly in your dealings?

  A student showed me his chair’s frequent snide comments about his abilities on his tracked-change drafts. To my student’s credit, he kept pushing on.

• Will the chair work well with other committee members and “fight” for you with them if necessary?

  Other committee members can have strong feelings about, for instance, a single research site vs. many, a particular theoretical foundation, or any number of other issues. They may “dictate”  extensive changes. But it’s the chair who is the final word and who should stand up for you.

• Will the chair be reasonably stable at the university?

  At a crucial time in one client’s dissertation, his chair left the university abruptly under hushed circumstances. The client had to scrounge for another chair.

• Will the chair help you later in your career?

  Not imperative but a wonderful asset. Chairs write job recommendation letters, alert students about openings, and sometimes invite them to be part of the next grant project.

Chair Characteristics

One university has a checklist of professors’ names and form for students to help them choose their chairs and committees. Some of the characteristics students are asked to specify: supportive or hands-off, highly goal directive or minimally goal directive, soft critiques or sharp. Other characteristics would seem to constitute the perfect members: Gives strong feedback, has a sense of humor, patient, collegial, calming to the candidate, committed to success, nurtures candidate’s self-sufficiency, inspires intellectual growth, enthusiastic, and understands the dissertation and IRB processes, and more. If you haven’t already, consider all of these.

More Questions for You

After all your homework, ask yourself two other crucial questions. What do I want and need in a chair? How do I feel about this faculty member?

Listen inside. You’ve often done this with other things. When you meet new people, you can tell immediately whether you like them or not. When you enter a certain place, you know whether it feels good or not.

If you think you should be reasonable and apply logic (“He’s a well-known tenured professor!”), and if your gut is telling you otherwise, it won’t work. If you stack up all kinds of rational arguments to convince yourself what should be the best choice (“She’s got stellar publications and connections!”), it won’t work. That’s why you really gravitate to the new associate professor who misplaces his glasses and stumbles over his words. But he asks stimulating questions in class and has kindly eyes.

So, gather information, ask the right questions, and suspend your intellect (the only time I’ll advise this). I can’t guarantee you’ll locate the perfect chair, but with these suggestions and your diligence and discernment, you’ll have a better chance of a good, even pleasant, relationship in which you’ll grow academically and personally. And you’ll later remember your chair with gratitude and fondness.

References

Shore, B. M. (2014). The graduate advisor handbook: A student-centered approach. University of Chicago Press.
Zhao, C. M., Golde, M., & McCormack, A. C. (2007). More than a signature: How advisor choice and advisor behaviour affect doctoral student satisfaction. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 31(3), 263-281. https://doi.org/10.1080/03098770701424983

The post Dear Dr. Noelle: Musical Chair? appeared first on Abstract.

The AI Committee carefully reviewed and considered the input of our members to this statement addressing one of the most pressing issues facing our members now and in the future. This final position statement will help shape and direct future actions and activities of the AI Committee and TAA generally. Learn more about the AI Committee’s work.

The statement’s Preamble reads:

Generative Artificial Intelligence (“GenAI”) is a revolutionary technology with the potential to fundamentally alter human education, learning and creativity as we know it. The future impact of GenAI is uncertain and potentially massive. While GenAI presents significant challenges to creators, educators, and publishers, it also presents meaningful opportunities to enhance teaching, improve accessibility, accelerate research processes, and support student learning when implemented thoughtfully, transparently, and ethically.

The question is not whether GenAI will shape higher education, but how it will be shaped—and by whom.

Read the full statement. TAA welcomes engagement from publishers that would like to work with the committee to achieve some of its goals. Contact Brenda Ulrich, Chair, at bulrich@archstonelaw.com.

The post TAA AI Committee Announces Association’s Position Statement on Artificial Intelligence appeared first on Abstract.

Whatever your political point of view, I hope we can all agree libraries (of all types) and librarians are essential.

For academic authors, they’re more than just hallowed buildings or subscription portals. They’re the infrastructure behind your thinking. If you use them strategically, they can quietly elevate the quality, depth, and efficiency of your work in ways that aren’t always obvious at first.

Let’s start with the most visible aspect: access. A strong, diverse collection is still the foundation of everything. That doesn’t just mean having access to the top journals in your field. It means breadth. Interdisciplinary coverage. Back issue and historical archives. Niche monographs. Some of the most interesting insights in academic writing come from adjacent fields, and a well-curated library makes those connections possible.

When you’re working on a project, especially a book or a journal article, you’ll often hit a point where your core sources start to feel repetitive. That’s usually a signal. It means you need to widen your search. A good library collection lets you do that without friction. It gives you the ability to follow a line of inquiry sideways, not just forward. And that’s often where the essential ingredient can be found.

But access alone isn’t enough. Most academic libraries are packed with tools that go far beyond simple database searches. And many authors barely scratch the surface of what’s available.

Think about everything bundled into your institutional access: specialized databases, citation managers, digital tools, text mining platforms, data repositories, interlibrary loan systems, and (increasingly) AI-assisted research tools. These aren’t just conveniences. They can fundamentally change how you approach a project.

For example, if you’re still manually tracking citations instead of using a robust reference manager, you’re spending cognitive energy on something that should be automated. If you’re not using advanced search features or subject-specific databases, you’re likely missing key conversations in your field. And if you haven’t explored interlibrary loan recently, you might be surprised at how quickly you can access obscure or international materials.

There’s also a strategic layer here. The more proficient you are with these tools, the more efficiently you can move from idea to draft. That matters when you’re balancing writing with teaching, service, and everything else on your plate.

And this leads to the most underutilized resource in the entire system: librarians.

Many academic authors think of librarians as support staff for students. That’s a mistake. Librarians are highly trained information specialists, and in many cases, they have a deeper operational understanding of the research ecosystem than the average faculty member.

Building a relationship with a librarian, especially one in your subject area, can be a quiet game changer. They can help you refine search strategies, identify lesser-known databases, track down hard-to-find sources, and even think through how your research fits into broader information networks.

More than that, they can save you time. A good librarian can often do in 20 minutes what might take you hours of trial and error. And because they’re not embedded in your specific project, they can sometimes see angles or resources you wouldn’t think of looking for.

This doesn’t have to be formal. It can start with a single conversation. Reach out when you’re beginning a project. Ask what tools or resources you might be overlooking. Treat it as a collaboration, not a transaction.

Over time, that relationship compounds. You become more efficient. Your research becomes more comprehensive. And you spend less time wrestling with logistics and more time doing the actual intellectual work.

In the end, the library isn’t just a backdrop to your writing life; it’s an active partner in it. The authors who get the most out of it aren’t necessarily the ones with the most resources. They’re the ones who know how to use what’s already there.

John Bond is a publishing consultant at Riverwinds Consulting. His most recent book is: The Little Guide to Getting Your Book Published: Simple Steps to Success. He is also the host of the YouTube channel “Publishing Defined.” Contact him at jbond@riverwindsconsulting.com.

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About 40 percent of people in the United States make New Year’s resolutions. Are you one of them? I am. One of my resolutions for this year was to write 12 TAA blog posts. You might ask, “How many have you written so far?” Just one—the one you’re reading now. Between unexpected hardships, work commitments, and starting a graduate program in Happiness Studies, it was difficult to keep up with everything. As someone who loves to follow through my resolutions, I felt disappointed in myself for not staying committed to my goal. If you can relate to my story, you’ll be glad to know you don’t have to wait until New Year’s to renew your resolutions. A fresh start can happen much sooner than that.

Dr. Katy Milkman, a behavioral scientist and professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has studied the concept of fresh starts (Dai et al., 2014). She wanted to uncover what it is about New Year’s that gives people a sense of fresh start. As writers, I believe her findings are especially relevant, since we are often beginning new projects—whether it’s a book, an academic article, a grant proposal, or a blog post like this one.

What Fresh Starts Are

According to Milkman (2021), the key to experiencing a fresh start lies in our autobiographical memory—the system you use to recall personal experiences and significant life events. She explains that you don’t view your life as a straight line; instead, you see it as a series of “chapter breaks,” much like characters in a novel. These chapter breaks separate how you think about who you were from who you will become, and they occur at predictable moments. For example, a major chapter break might be starting a manuscript, getting a new job, or moving to a new city.

No matter if the chapter breaks in your life are positive or negative, when you bookend them, you feel like you’ve made a major transition. Opening a new chapter gives you a sense of a new beginning and helps you separate from your former self (e.g., before you began writing your book). That was the old you; and you feel this is the new you now, starting fresh at the chapter break.

That’s what happens on New Year’s—you feel as though you’re at a chapter break. You might say to yourself, “That was the old me who didn’t finish the manuscript I planned to write. But this year will be different. I’m going to be optimistic and approach things differently because of this fresh start.” Then, you set aside the old version of yourself and move on to a fresh start.

Why Fresh Starts Can Help

According to Milkman (2021), there are two main reasons why fresh starts are beneficial. First, these break points make you pause and consider your life from a broader perspective. For instance, at the beginning of a semester, you might reflect on what you want the coming months to look like or what you hope to achieve. This shift primes you to consider what changes you want to make and encourages big-picture thinking.

The second reason involves identity (Milkman, 2021). After turning the page on a new chapter, you feel your identity shift—you become a “new you.” This sense of renewal allows you to pin your hopes and intentions to the transition point, saying, “That was the old me. This is the new me.”

How to Create New Fresh Starts

Milkman (2021) points out that chapter breaks happen more often than you may think. There are major ones, like moving to a new city or getting a promotion. But there are also smaller, mini chapter breaks that you can use as fresh starts. For example, “the beginning of a new week, month, year, school semester, as well as immediately following a public holiday, a school break, or a birthday” (Dai et. al., 2014, p. 2564).

To create a fresh start, begin by identifying moments that are meaningful fresh starts to you—those that naturally signal a new beginning. Then, plan to tackle change at that time. Ask yourself: What upcoming fresh starts stand out on your calendar and give you a sense of a new beginning? Personalize these moments to maximize your motivation and make the most of your fresh start (Milkman, 2021).

Remember, a fresh start helps you begin, but it won’t get you to the finish line on its own. To make the most of that fresh start, you’ll need a plan. When creating your plan, be sure to (a) set a concrete goal, (b) decide when, where, and how you’ll achieve it, and (c) make the process enjoyable (Milkman, 2021).

So, if you’ve abandoned a resolution or a writing project you want to revisit, create a fresh start for yourself. Often, the hardest part is simply beginning again.

References

Dai, H., Milkman, K. L., & Riis, J. (2014). The fresh start effect: Temporal landmarks motivate aspirational behavior. Management Science, 60(10), 2563–2582. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901

Milkman, K. L. (2021). How to change: The science of getting from where you are to where you want to be. Portfolio.

Angelica Ribeiro is a writer, researcher, and professor. She is the author of How to Create Happiness at Work, Running into Happiness, and My Happiness Habit Journal. She holds a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a focus on English as a second language from Texas A&M University. She has taught English learners and preservice teachers in the United States and Brazil for over 25 years. Angelica has several publications on second language acquisition. She works as a professor in higher education and helps others benefit from her happiness research. When she was a Ph.D. student, Angelica struggled with balancing her academic commitments and personal life, which motivated her to embark on a journey to increase happiness. Her journey was so successful that now she encourages others to create happiness in their busy lives by sharing science-based strategies. Visit https://www.creatinghappiness.today

The post How to Create a Fresh Start appeared first on Abstract.

Faculty Concerned About ASU’s ‘Frankensteinian’ AI Course Builder (April 29, 2026)

Board Ouster Raises Further Concerns About NSF’s Future (April 27, 2026)

At Texas Tech, Even Some Student Research on Gender Will Be Banned (April 27, 2026)

Nearly One-Third of Faculty in Red States Say They’ve Censored Their Research (April 24, 2026)

Colleges Were Sweating a Major Compliance Deadline. Now the Justice Dept. Has Delayed It. (April 20, 2026)

The post Industry News Round-Up Week of 4/27/26 appeared first on Abstract.

Q: Whenever I start writing, all kinds of ideas start swirling around. How do I corral them?

— Creatively Dizzy

A: I’ve experienced the same, often. Whether I’ve scribbled a handful of notes in a frenzy of inspiration or actually made an outline, once I start to write that same itchy, unsteady, slightly nauseous feeling pervades. Not exactly illness or indigestion, it’s more of a nervous disquiet I can only describe as “creative limbo.” Doesn’t matter how often I’ve felt it or how many pieces I’ve started and completed. It rears up, and the ideas threaten to overtake me.

Searching for remedies, I began exploring works on creativity and anxiety. And I discovered answers that made sense, of all things, in “chaos theory.” I hope the answers will help you too.

What’s Chaos Theory?

Chaos theory has been developed and applied in mathematics, physics, economics, engineering, psychology, philosophy, biology, management, and leadership, among other disciplines. As scientists have observed, the major concept is that elements of “wild disorder” appear within otherwise orderly systems. Conversely (or similarly), within apparently disorderly systems elements appear of “unexpected order” (Gleick, 2008, pp. 56, 173).

To our dismay, those wildly disorderly elements can appear in our writing. We may proudly feel anchored in a newly-created neat, symmetrical, comprehensive (we think) outline; or an intricate but integrated map of arguments; or a list of crucial points, defenses, dramatic revelations, or subplots. But as we get deeper into the work, paths and possibilities start proliferating like runaway cell division, way beyond our plan. Random thoughts, questions, bits of essential (and nonessential) information, and voluptuous phrases that may have nothing to do with the current project pop into our heads and swirl in unruly combinations.

Nonremedial Remedies

When we’re besieged by such chaotic feelings, we tend to take refuge in any number of anxiety-battling behaviors. Some writers try to “force” the work and keep going, but every new attempt produces a dead end, or at least what they’re sure is trash. One writer I know gets a severe headache and must lie down in a shaded room with a cold compress and cup of chamomile tea. Another goes straight to his garage, picks up his sanding tool, and attacks the cabinet he’s refinishing. An accomplished scholar throws a blanket over her desk, drags out all her baking pans and makes eight dozen cookies—from scratch.

Another friend, an experienced writer, told me she immediately reminds herself that she’s feeling this strange “creative limbo.” This label helps her get through it more smoothly, but, she confesses, she still jumps on her stationary bike and frantically pedals fifteen miles.

Reassurance

As many creative people have acknowledged, the fearsome state my friend identified is necessary in any creative work. The great early twentieth-century mathematician Jules Henri Poincaré writes that the answers we crave “never happen except after some days of voluntary effort . . . where the way taken seems totally astray.” Such efforts, he assures us, haven’t been wasted: “they have set agoing the unconscious machine, and without them it would not have moved and would have produced nothing” (Poincaré, 2000/1910, p. 90).

More concisely, the poet Paul Valéry (1937/1952) declares, “The fact is that disorder is the condition of the mind’s fertility” (p. 106). When we accept this truth in our chaotic moments, we can bear them a little better and know their inconclusiveness will eventually prove fruitful.

Allowing Our Chaos

But to live in that “totally astray” limbo isn’t easy. We demand the answers now—just add a cup of insight for instant solution.

How can we allow the essential limbo? Especially in relation to chaos theory, I found an answer in another concept, that of “open systems.” An open system— applicable to science, technology, education, management, social sciences, and humans—constantly interacts with its environment and exchanges data, resources, and energy. As writers and scholars, we are intense, refined, and attuned open systems. We’re not only constantly interacting with but also observing, studying, analyzing, and recording our environments.

Margaret Wheatley (2006), a brilliant leadership expert, management consultant, and visionary, explains that open systems

maintain a state of non-equilibrium, keeping the system off balance so that it can change and grow. They participate in an active exchange with their world, using what is there for their own renewal. (p. 78)

Don’t we do this, chaotic-like, all the time? We think a piece is finished and, in the shower, a new insight or conclusion hits us. We realize we haven’t discussed a major limitation in our article. We’re beating the bejeezus out of scrambled eggs and a final conclusion appears that ties the whole thing together. Out of nowhere, an explanatory diagram appears before our eyes that explains the interrelationships of our four qualitative themes.

When scientists began to look at the ways systems grow and develop, they noticed that a system, whether chemical, organic, or human, deals with outwardly inapplicable stimuli or foreign substances by trying to subdue them. We can be tempted to the same action in our writing projects: when disturbing observations and ideas intrude, we often try to shut them down with all sorts of avoidance tricks. In the process, though, we often block ourselves not only from writing but also from the best, most inspired ideas.

Allowing Our Random Ideas

If instead we permit those swarming thoughts their natural course, an unexpected thing happens. As Wheatley (2006) describes, “if the disturbance survives those first attempts at suppression and remains lodged within the system, an iterative process begins” (p. 96). When this process of repetition that seems to go nowhere continues, the system—miraculously—gradually evolves toward its solutions.

A startling and beautiful illustration of chaos to resolution that may parallel our writing experiences can be seen in the “Three-Winged Bird: A Chaotic Strange Attractor.” It was created to trace the journey of a system in chaos (reproduced in Wheatley, 2006, p. 79; see also Jantsch, 1980). A simple nonlinear equation was entered into a computer and plotted as a point in three-dimensional computer space. Through millions of repetitions, lines representing it appeared on the computer screen, superficially random and meaningless. But eventually, the system’s form became visible, like the “bird” (see illustration).

As if it could be visionary art, the three-winged bird embodies a basic principle of chaos theory: what appears as disorder in our usual, limited, daily perspective is only order in the making. Within the chaotic circumstances reside the very seeds and prototypes of wholeness. The rather startling conclusion: There is no chaos.

Resolution of Chaos

In our writing (and lives) the seemingly chaotic is often indispensable. Much as we wish our works to spring forth faultlessly and infallibly reasoned, they rarely do. We get an idea, and suddenly the ending pops into our minds. Or we hear an internal riveting first line, as if dictated, but are stymied as to what should follow. A question no one has asked in our field lights up our brain, and we know we’re onto something. As we recognize the principles of chaos and the open system that are part of ourselves, we will more easily tolerate the unnerving process of creative limbo. So, how to handle those runaways? Well, first, let them stream out and zoom around like drunken electrons. Endure them, watch them, even accept them. They will slow and settle down.

We’ll learn through these processes and our iterative drafts what should be recorded and what should be winnowed (or maybe tucked away for another piece). We need patience and trust. In following our leanings, our questions come to be answered, our pieces begin to fit, our doubts dissolve. When we allow our creative limbo, the unsettling elements eventually swirl into order and produce our writing, our three-winged bird.

References

Gleick, J. (2008). Chaos: The making of a new science. Penguin.

Jantsch, E. (1980). The self-organizing universe: Scientific and human implications of the emerging paradigm of evolution. Pergamon.

Poincaré, J. H. (2000/1910). Mathematical creation. Resonance Reflection, pp. 85-94. http://vigeland.caltech.edu/ist4/lectures/Poincare%20Reflections.pdf

Valéry, P. (1952). The course in poetics: First lesson (trans. J. Mathews). In B. Ghiselin (Ed). The creative process (pp. 92-106). Vintage Mentor. (Original work published 1937)

Wheatley, M. (2006). Leadership and the new science: Discovering order in a chaotic world (3rd ed.). Berrett-Koehler.

Dissertation coach, nurturer, bolsterer, handholder, and editor; scholarly and mainstream writing consultant; author of writing craft, spiritual, and academic articles; and spiritual and motivational counselor, Noelle Sterne has published many pieces in print and online venues, including Author Magazine, Chicken Soup for the Soul, Children’s Book Insider, Graduate Schools Magazine, GradShare, InnerSelf, Inspire Me Today, Transformation Magazine, Unity Magazine, Women in Higher Education, Women on Writing, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. Noelle’s ninth story for Chicken Soup for the Soul appears in June 2025 in the volume Self-Care Isn’t Selfish. With a Ph.D. from Columbia University, Noelle has for 30 years helped doctoral candidates wrestle their dissertations to completion (finally). Based on her practice, her Challenges in Writing Your Dissertation: Coping with the Emotional, Interpersonal, and Spiritual Struggles (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2015) addresses students’ often overlooked or ignored but crucial nonacademic difficulties that can seriously prolong their agony. See the PowerPoint teaser here. In Noelle`s Trust Your Life: Forgive Yourself and Go After Your Dreams (Unity Books, 2011), she draws examples from her academic consulting and other aspects of life to help readers release regrets and reach lifelong yearnings. Following one of her own, she is currently working on her third novel. Visit Noelle at www.trustyourlifenow.com

The post Dear Dr. Noelle: Whirling in the Limbo of Creativity appeared first on Abstract.

Voices of Rural Leadership: True Stories of Success in Education

Topics explored include: Building Family-School Partnerships, Community Collaboration, Supporting the Journey from College to the Classroom, Building Lasting Relationships, Developing Instructional Leaders, Enhancing Professional Capacity…and more. We celebrate the incredible work happening in rural schools and communities – work that educates, equips, and empowers the next generation of educators and leaders.

Purchase it in the 2026 TAA Institute for Textbook & Academic Authors Bookstore. 

Join us for the Textbook & Academic Authors Association’s first-ever TAA Institute for Textbook & Academic Authors, designed to support authors across different experience levels. Do a deep dive on topics especially important to you! Registration is now open!

The post 2026 TAA Institute Bookstore Featured Book: ‘Voices of Rural Leadership: True Stories of Success in Education’ appeared first on Abstract.

‘Potentially Existential’: Higher Ed Denounces Proposed Federal Funding Strings (April 1, 2026)

Florida Deals Another Blow to Sociology (March 30, 2026)

Diversity Officers Gather to Grieve and Rally  (March 30, 2026)

How Companies Are Using AI to Pay Workers as Little as Possible (March 26, 2026)

White House Releases National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence (March 23. 2026)

The post Industry News Round-Up Week of 3/30/2026 appeared first on Abstract.

Dr. Mike Rutherford’s book, The Artisan Teacher: A Field Guide to Skillful Teaching (2013), illustrates 23 common themes regularly modeled in the classroom by effective educators. Utilized as a clinical resource in schools throughout the U.S. and internationally (Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea), this text breaks down in practical narrative why proven pedagogy makes all the difference.

Rutherford, a former high school chemistry teacher and middle and high school administrator in Fayetteville, North Carolina, has for the last 28 years served as a school instructional leadership consultant, drawing on a career’s worth of action research through direct observation of classroom practices and habits. The result is a body of work that has had a significant positive impact on teaching and learning. Currently, The Artisan Teacher: A Field Guide to Skillful Teaching is over 100,000 copies sold. Additionally, the 23 themes illustrated in this text are often utilized as a classroom walkthrough instrument.

And, those who have used Rutherford’s work compliment how practical The Artisan Teacher resource is—easily adopted school-wide as common language in aligning daily teaching/learning communication. From “stagecraft” to “mid-course correction” and “locale memory”, from “engaging students” and “personal attention” to “chunking”, the author provides educators on all levels the opportunity to easily self-assess and tweak their daily teaching “habits” and classroom instructional time protocols.

Rutherford explains further: “An artisan is skilled in the applied arts, combining artistic expression, scientific knowledge, and practiced labor to create uniquely valuable works. The most successful gap-closing, achievement-producing teachers view teaching as a craft. Like traditional artisans, Artisan teachers combine art, knowledge, and skill in a labor of love.”

Before launching his own consulting business, Rutherford was the Executive Director of the Mayerson Academy for Human Resource Development in Cincinnati, Ohio for five years. Rutherford Learning Group, Inc. is a research and professional development consultancy focused on high-performance teaching and effective school leadership.

The Artisan Teacher: A Field Guide to Skillful Teaching can be purchased online at Amazon, or in English and French versions at www.rutherfordlg.com.

Dr. Rocky Wallace is Professor of Education at Campbellsville University, and has helped develop the graduate education leadership program for CU. He has served in a similar capacity for Morehead State University and Asbury University. He is a former principal of a U.S. Blue Ribbon School, and has published 12 books on servant leadership and school improvement with Rowman & Littlefield.

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