Robert J. Nash – författare

Helping College Students Find Purpose Today's college students are demanding that their educational experiences address the core questions of meaning and purpose. . . What does it mean to be successful? How will I know what type of career is best for me? Why do I hurt so much when a relationship ends? Why do innocent people have to suffer? Faculty and administrators are in the unique position to make special contributions to their students' search for meaning, and when they work together, everyone on a college campus benefits. Helping College Students Find Purpose provides a theory-to-practice model of meaning-making that enables the entire campus community to participate in the process. Based on a practical how-to approach, the authors outline a series of concrete steps for applying the theory and practice of meaning-making to teaching, leading, administering, and advising. Filled with real-life vignettes, this guidebook includes the background knowledge and proven tools that will help faculty and administrators act as effective mentors to students. While there is no single solution that can meet everyone's needs, the authors provide a series of classroom and cross-campus strategies that are specifically designed to help students successfully navigate their diverse meaning-making activities and effectively enhance their quest for meaning.

How to Talk About Hot Topics on Campus fills a gap in the student services and teaching and learning literature by providing a resource that shows how to construct and carry out difficult conversations from various vantage points in the academy. It offers a theory-to-practice model of conversation for the entire college campus that will enable all constituencies to engage in productive and civil dialogue on the most difficult and controversial social, religious, political, and cultural topics.

Now more than ever, with the explosion of new technologies and human service delivery systems, innovative teaching methodologies and assessment instruments, classic ethical questions and problems still remain. The Second Edition of Robert Nash's bestseller expands on his earlier work with the addition of an extensive ""question-and-answer"" epilogue where Nash responds to questions about the first edition. This new chapter incorporates the latest research in applied ethics teaching and in resolving ethical dilemmas in the professions. The only applied ethics book written for both educators and human service professionals, ""Real World"" Ethics is essential reading for everyone who find themselves faced with making critical ethical decisions in their work.

At a time when STEM research and new technologies are dominating the curricula of colleges and universities, this important book refocuses the conversation on holistic education for all students. Organized around the most important and difficult questions that students face, Preparing Students for Life Beyond College explores a vision of education that will enable students to talk about universal issues openly and honestly, preparing them for life beyond their formal education. Featuring a variety of traditional and innovative pedagogies, strategies, recommendations, and case studies, this practical resource provides student affairs practitioners and higher education faculty in a variety of disciplines with concrete approaches for developing campuses and classes that encourage critical thinking and reflection. This exciting book prepares colleges and universities to help students create meaning in their lives—no matter the discipline, campus location or delivery system.

At a time when STEM research and new technologies are dominating the curricula of colleges and universities, this important book refocuses the conversation on holistic education for all students. Organized around the most important and difficult questions that students face, Preparing Students for Life Beyond College explores a vision of education that will enable students to talk about universal issues openly and honestly, preparing them for life beyond their formal education. Featuring a variety of traditional and innovative pedagogies, strategies, recommendations, and case studies, this practical resource provides student affairs practitioners and higher education faculty in a variety of disciplines with concrete approaches for developing campuses and classes that encourage critical thinking and reflection. This exciting book prepares colleges and universities to help students create meaning in their lives—no matter the discipline, campus location or delivery system.

This book has received the AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award 2013.The book deals concretely with the most effective ways for educators to be social justice advocates, with questions about what it means to be a social justice advocate, and with the best communication strategies to advocate for a particular social justice view that might start and sustain an open dialogue. The book presents a number of practical approaches to dialoguing about social justice in formal educational settings. It is well suited for college students, graduate students, faculty and higher education administrators, politicians, and anyone interested in having a civil discourse addressing social justice.

This book has received the AESA (American Educational Studies Association) Critics Choice Award 2013.The book deals concretely with the most effective ways for educators to be social justice advocates, with questions about what it means to be a social justice advocate, and with the best communication strategies to advocate for a particular social justice view that might start and sustain an open dialogue. The book presents a number of practical approaches to dialoguing about social justice in formal educational settings. It is well suited for college students, graduate students, faculty and higher education administrators, politicians, and anyone interested in having a civil discourse addressing social justice.

Our Stories Matter explains and exemplifies the methodology of Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing for marginalized, underrepresented, and previously «disappeared» students at all levels of higher education. Presently no book looks at the whys and hows of scholarly personal narrative writing that focuses on this particular audience of underrepresented students. SPN writing has its origins in early slave narratives; 1960s feminist liberation stories; religio-spiritual autobiographies; existential, postmodern, and postcritical theory; and memoir/autobiographies of victimization and victory. Our Stories Matter attempts to fill a huge vacuum in the literature on the art and craft of personal narrative writing for undergraduates and graduates, because it appeals to a hugely expanding, previously underrepresented audience. It also provides faculty with a substantive pedagogical rationale and a writer’s guide for teaching this kind of scholarly research – not just to underrepresented students but to all students who are ready to tell their stories in their own original, creative ways.

Our Stories Matter explains and exemplifies the methodology of Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing for marginalized, underrepresented, and previously «disappeared» students at all levels of higher education. Presently no book looks at the whys and hows of scholarly personal narrative writing that focuses on this particular audience of underrepresented students. SPN writing has its origins in early slave narratives; 1960s feminist liberation stories; religio-spiritual autobiographies; existential, postmodern, and postcritical theory; and memoir/autobiographies of victimization and victory. Our Stories Matter attempts to fill a huge vacuum in the literature on the art and craft of personal narrative writing for undergraduates and graduates, because it appeals to a hugely expanding, previously underrepresented audience. It also provides faculty with a substantive pedagogical rationale and a writer’s guide for teaching this kind of scholarly research – not just to underrepresented students but to all students who are ready to tell their stories in their own original, creative ways.

It is time for academics to embrace the fact that nothing is more appealing to readers – especially to our students – than personal stories with meaning-making implications that can touch all lives. No matter the age or stage in life, the personal or collective identity, everyone deals with meaning-making issues that challenge them – and others – throughout their lifetimes. And everyone we know finds that when encouraged to write their stories in the academy, they find meaning, wholeness, and healing.How Stories Heal illustrates the value of personal narrative writing. Referring to this type of writing as the «turn to the subjective I» or to «me-search research», this is a book about Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing, actually written in an SPN style. This book will satisfy a huge need in higher education and scholarship, particularly for students who are writing undergraduate and graduate theses and doctoral dissertations; and also for junior and senior faculty who are looking to construct alternative forms of scholarship for publication.

It is time for academics to embrace the fact that nothing is more appealing to readers – especially to our students – than personal stories with meaning-making implications that can touch all lives. No matter the age or stage in life, the personal or collective identity, everyone deals with meaning-making issues that challenge them – and others – throughout their lifetimes. And everyone we know finds that when encouraged to write their stories in the academy, they find meaning, wholeness, and healing.How Stories Heal illustrates the value of personal narrative writing. Referring to this type of writing as the «turn to the subjective I» or to «me-search research», this is a book about Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing, actually written in an SPN style. This book will satisfy a huge need in higher education and scholarship, particularly for students who are writing undergraduate and graduate theses and doctoral dissertations; and also for junior and senior faculty who are looking to construct alternative forms of scholarship for publication.

Teaching College Students How to Solve Real-Life Moral Dilemmas will speak to the sometimes confounding, real-life, moral challenges that quarterlife students actually face each and every day of their lives. It will spell out an original, all-inclusive approach to thinking about, and applying, ethical problem-solving that takes into consideration people’s acts, intentions, circumstances, principles, background beliefs, religio-spiritualities, consequences, virtues and vices, narratives, communities, and the relevant institutional and political structures. This approach doesn’t tell students exactly what to do as much as it evokes important information in order to help them think more deeply and expansively about ethical issues in order to resolve actual ethical dilemmas. There is no text like it on the market today. Teaching College Students How to Solve Real-Life Moral Dilemmas can be used in a variety of ethics courses.

Teaching College Students How to Solve Real-Life Moral Dilemmas will speak to the sometimes confounding, real-life, moral challenges that quarterlife students actually face each and every day of their lives. It will spell out an original, all-inclusive approach to thinking about, and applying, ethical problem-solving that takes into consideration people’s acts, intentions, circumstances, principles, background beliefs, religio-spiritualities, consequences, virtues and vices, narratives, communities, and the relevant institutional and political structures. This approach doesn’t tell students exactly what to do as much as it evokes important information in order to help them think more deeply and expansively about ethical issues in order to resolve actual ethical dilemmas. There is no text like it on the market today. Teaching College Students How to Solve Real-Life Moral Dilemmas can be used in a variety of ethics courses.

There is no book exactly like Fifty Years of Interdisciplinary Teaching in Academe: One Professor’s Pedagogical Tips and Reflections. Very few professors have taught for half a century. Even fewer have written books on pedagogy from a personal narrative perspective and in plain English, without a particular cause to promote or axe to grind. Countless numbers of books have ruminated on the past, present, and future of higher education, but few authors have written their books as memoirs meant for both an academic and general audience. Few actually offer concrete tips drawn from years of personal experience for classroom teaching, mentoring, constructing curricula, courses, and programs, working with colleagues, and creating an interdisciplinary philosophy of educational theory and practice. Few of these books can be generalized to a number of helping professions. Teaching and learning happen in all the human service professions, not just in the American university.This book is grounded largely in author Robert J. Nash’s experiences, both positive and negative. Nash is less interested in propounding or expounding and more concerned with narrating his always-evolving stories of being an interdisciplinary professor who has experienced both success and struggle but who has always emerged as inspired and rejuvenated by his work, and the work of his students, in higher education. This book is a personal-narrative celebration of all that is and can be wonderful about the American university, including students, colleagues, and administrators. Nash concentrates on possibility rather than on liability but strives always to present an honest picture of higher education (both its strengths and weaknesses) and his place in it throughout the decades. The result of Fifty Years of Interdisciplinary Teaching in Academe is a vote of confidence for faculty, staff, and students.

There is no book exactly like Fifty Years of Interdisciplinary Teaching in Academe: One Professor’s Pedagogical Tips and Reflections. Very few professors have taught for half a century. Even fewer have written books on pedagogy from a personal narrative perspective and in plain English, without a particular cause to promote or axe to grind. Countless numbers of books have ruminated on the past, present, and future of higher education, but few authors have written their books as memoirs meant for both an academic and general audience. Few actually offer concrete tips drawn from years of personal experience for classroom teaching, mentoring, constructing curricula, courses, and programs, working with colleagues, and creating an interdisciplinary philosophy of educational theory and practice. Few of these books can be generalized to a number of helping professions. Teaching and learning happen in all the human service professions, not just in the American university.This book is grounded largely in author Robert J. Nash’s experiences, both positive and negative. Nash is less interested in propounding or expounding and more concerned with narrating his always-evolving stories of being an interdisciplinary professor who has experienced both success and struggle but who has always emerged as inspired and rejuvenated by his work, and the work of his students, in higher education. This book is a personal-narrative celebration of all that is and can be wonderful about the American university, including students, colleagues, and administrators. Nash concentrates on possibility rather than on liability but strives always to present an honest picture of higher education (both its strengths and weaknesses) and his place in it throughout the decades. The result of Fifty Years of Interdisciplinary Teaching in Academe is a vote of confidence for faculty, staff, and students.

For thousands of years, religion has been a key element of human societies. Whenever we, as educators, exclude or minimize religion’s vast role in society, we leave out a large part of our world’s shared history. This is a serious act of educational omission, even neglect, on the part of our nation’s public middle and secondary schools, particularly when adolescents are so ready to engage in meaningful conversation about the world that surrounds them. Our book’s central purpose is to provide middle-level and high school teachers with the necessary background knowledge and pedagogical skills necessary to help adolescents become religiously literate learners and citizens. Currently, there is no text like ours on the market that both covers a number of world religions, and presents concrete recommendations for teaching and learning this material. Our book is meant to educate the following audiences: teacher educators, middle-level and high school teachers in all content areas, administrators, school boards, and parents.For us, educating for religious literacy is all about bringing adolescents into the 21st century of teeming religious and spiritual diversity—a long-neglected component of the multicultural curriculum in public schools. In a post-9/11 world, religious literacy requires that students understand the whats and whys of differing religious beliefs, both in their own country and elsewhere. It means looking for commonalities, as well as differences, between and among the great wisdom traditions—both nationally and internationally. It is about understanding how all of us might live peacefully in a religiously diverse world. Our book accomplishes these goals by being informative, practical, experiential, case-based, and, above all, accessible to beginners.

For thousands of years, religion has been a key element of human societies. Whenever we, as educators, exclude or minimize religion’s vast role in society, we leave out a large part of our world’s shared history. This is a serious act of educational omission, even neglect, on the part of our nation’s public middle and secondary schools, particularly when adolescents are so ready to engage in meaningful conversation about the world that surrounds them. Our book’s central purpose is to provide middle-level and high school teachers with the necessary background knowledge and pedagogical skills necessary to help adolescents become religiously literate learners and citizens. Currently, there is no text like ours on the market that both covers a number of world religions, and presents concrete recommendations for teaching and learning this material. Our book is meant to educate the following audiences: teacher educators, middle-level and high school teachers in all content areas, administrators, school boards, and parents.For us, educating for religious literacy is all about bringing adolescents into the 21st century of teeming religious and spiritual diversity—a long-neglected component of the multicultural curriculum in public schools. In a post-9/11 world, religious literacy requires that students understand the whats and whys of differing religious beliefs, both in their own country and elsewhere. It means looking for commonalities, as well as differences, between and among the great wisdom traditions—both nationally and internationally. It is about understanding how all of us might live peacefully in a religiously diverse world. Our book accomplishes these goals by being informative, practical, experiential, case-based, and, above all, accessible to beginners.

What we intend to do in this book is to explain, and exemplify, in a nuts-and-bolts way, what we are calling Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing. This is a genre created over 15 years ago by Robert, one of the co-authors of this book. The other co-author, DeMethra, has actually written a thesis and dissertation using this genre, so she brings an author's direct SPN experience to the table. Both of us co-teach a course that we call "Scholarly Personal Narrative Writing for Pre-Professionals and Professionals." In the chapters that follow, we will present a step-by-step approach for composing an SPN manuscript. The book will be comprised of four general parts, consisting of several short, practical chapters, written in non-technical language. We will write each of the chapters as a way of responding to the most common questions that our students have raised about SPN writing through the years. We will attempt to write as we teach, with no frills and with clarity, empathy, and understanding. We will also provide several SPN writing examples, as well as authorial toolbox tips, throughout the book. In addition, we will conclude with a bibliography of the most relevant personal narrative writing guides we have been able to muster. Our desire is to minimize the number of in-text citations and references in order to maximize the space for us to present a useful, nuts-and-bolts guide to writing, as well as a realistic, down-to-earth rationale for scholarly personal narrative writing in the academy. After reading the book, and practicing the writing exercises, undergraduate and graduate students will be able to author research papers, theses, and dissertations using the Scholarly Personal Narrative research genre. Hundreds of students have done this already throughout the country.

What we intend to do in this book is to explain, and exemplify, in a nuts-and-bolts way, what we are calling Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) writing. This is a genre created over 15 years ago by Robert, one of the co-authors of this book. The other co-author, DeMethra, has actually written a thesis and dissertation using this genre, so she brings an author's direct SPN experience to the table. Both of us co-teach a course that we call "Scholarly Personal Narrative Writing for Pre-Professionals and Professionals." In the chapters that follow, we will present a step-by-step approach for composing an SPN manuscript. The book will be comprised of four general parts, consisting of several short, practical chapters, written in non-technical language. We will write each of the chapters as a way of responding to the most common questions that our students have raised about SPN writing through the years. We will attempt to write as we teach, with no frills and with clarity, empathy, and understanding. We will also provide several SPN writing examples, as well as authorial toolbox tips, throughout the book. In addition, we will conclude with a bibliography of the most relevant personal narrative writing guides we have been able to muster. Our desire is to minimize the number of in-text citations and references in order to maximize the space for us to present a useful, nuts-and-bolts guide to writing, as well as a realistic, down-to-earth rationale for scholarly personal narrative writing in the academy. After reading the book, and practicing the writing exercises, undergraduate and graduate students will be able to author research papers, theses, and dissertations using the Scholarly Personal Narrative research genre. Hundreds of students have done this already throughout the country.

As authors, we are convinced that the time has finally arrived in academe for an extensive, experience-based, firsthand, seamless examination of what we are calling crossover pedagogy. There is no book-length examination of facultystudent affairs administrators collaboration in the academic realm anywhere. Nobody has yet to produce a case-based, hands-on, book-length treatment of how (and why) faculty and student affairs administrators can co-teach, co-author, and co-consult with one another as co-equal educators and campus leaders—with each group complementing the other in terms of their special skills, knowledge, background, and experiences. Without coming to practical terms with the case for collaboration that the above authors make, the why rationale developed in these publications on the topic of faculty-administrator collaboration (sometimes referred to as 'blended' efforts) around the teaching-learning venture is lost in the logistics of technical policy issues and challenges.