The Provost Office began this program in 2002 as an experiment designed to support faculty writers. Although faculty development initiatives historically have focused on supporting professors as teachers, changes in scholarly publishing call for consideration of faculty as authors as well. In recent years, we have worked one-on-one with about thirty Emory authors a year, and we meet many more through workshops and colloquia. Any full-time faculty member in any one of Emory’s nine schools is eligible to use this program.

While many of faculty authors we see have been from the College of Arts and Sciences, we have also worked with writers from schools of Medicine, Public Health, Theology, Business, and Law. Typically, writers who contact us wish to make their ideas more accessible to somewhat broader or interdisciplinary audiences. We also frequently consult with junior faculty on the revision of dissertations and writing of book proposals. And faculty from all ranks—from assistant to full professor, non-tenure track, and Emeriti—have consulted on issues related to the writing, revision, and publishing process.

Below are links to articles about the changing nexus of relations among scholarly writers, academic publishers, and higher education institutions. Articles about this program’s evolution are also listed below. When we designed this program, we looked for models or similar efforts at other universities and could find very little. In recent years, though, programs to support faculty authors have sprung up at the University of Virginia (Professors as Writers, http://trc.virginia.edu/Programs/PAW/PAW.htm) and Georgetown University (Office of Scholarly and Literary Publishing, http://georgetownbooks.blogspot.com/.) We always welcome hearing news of other efforts at other schools. To contact us, email Amy Benson Brown at abrow01@emory.edu.

"New Models for University Presses" by Scott Jaschik, July 31, 2007
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/07/31/ricepress

Writings of the Modern Language Association’s Ad Hoc Committee on the Future of Scholarly Publishing led to study published in 2006. See the Report of the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion.
http://www.mla.org/issues_scholarly_pub

"University Presses Take Their Stand" Inside Higher Education, Feb. 28, 2007
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/28/open

"Where Manuscript Development Meets Faculty Development" Amy Benson Brown, Journal of Scholarly Publishing, January 2006
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_scholarly_publishing/v037/37.2brown.html

"Publish or Perish" Mary Loftus, Emory Magazine, Autumn 2005
http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/autumn_2005/precis_publish.htm

"Understanding the Economic Burden of Scholarly Publishing" Cathy N. Davidson, Chronicle of Higher Education, October 3, 2003
http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i06/06b00701.htm