Roads Taken: Women in Student Affairs at Mid-Career

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Advice
Review: As a mid-career woman myself, I found this book an excellent source of advice and real-world narratives about what life is like in student affairs. I went through many of the same things the women who wrote for this book did, in terms of deciding on graduate school, coping with a dual-career family, making decisions about children, and worrying about what was next for me professionally.

I recommend the book very highly for anyone who is struggling to find her (or his) way in the professional world of higher education administration and trying to balance work and family while staying moderately sane.

I've been talking about the book with colleagues and friends, and they agree that it's high time someone brought these issues into the open for all of us to wrestle with. I commend the authors and editors for this great resource.

Rating:
Summary: Signs of progress
Review: Perhaps it is a measure of good progress that such a book as this could be written today. The authors present studies of over twenty women, who have made careers for themselves in the occupation of student affairs. Moreover, the women have been in this field long enough, to be now considered in the middle of their careers.

The women's experiences are varied. And several had to make sacrifices or difficult choices involving career and family. But the assemblage of this number of women is not revolutionary now. The presence of women in student affairs is not considered unusual. Plus they did not have to endure outright explicit discrimination based on their gender or race. (Which is not to say that no discrimination was experienced.) So implicitly, you could regard this book as positive, without making light of the issues raised by the editors.