Susan Robison - The Peak Performing Professor: A Practical Guide to Productivity and Happiness

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Robison, Susan, 1945

The peak performing professor : a practical guide to productivity and happiness / Susan Robison. First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-10514-6 (pbk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-41886-4 (ebk.)

ISBN 978-1-118-41621-1 (ebk)

1. College teaching. 2. College teachers. I. Title.

LB2331.R54 2013

378.1dc23

2013022220

About the Author

Susan Robison, Ph.D., is a psychologist, author, coach, counselor, and consultant. A former academic department chair and professor of psychology at the Notre Dame of Maryland University (NDMU), Susan is the author of two leadership books ( Discovering Our Gifts and Sharing Our Gifts published by the National Council of Catholic Women) which formed the basis of a leadership development series for a national womens organization held at various sites throughout the U.S. and Europe for twelve years, training over 3,000 participants for leadership positions.

Susan was part of the consortium team that coauthored a faculty development book ( Thinking and Writing in College published by the National Council of Teachers of English) with Barbara Walvoord and Lucille McCarthy which led to numerous articles on research and to invitations to conduct faculty development workshops in writing-across-the-curriculum pedagogy at colleges around the country.

Susan received a B.S. in psychology in the natural sciences from Loyola University (Chicago), and a M.S. and Ph. D. in general experimental psychology from Ohio University. At her first teaching job at a branch campus of Ohio University in Lancaster (OU-L), she was the only psychology professor on the faculty and in her second job at NDMU, she taught all of the undergraduate psychology curriculum except for abnormal and psychometrics. Susan has been particularly known for her curriculum innovation. While at OU-L, she designed what might have been the first psychology of women course in the country and at NDMU designed the first human sexuality course in an undergraduate institution in the Baltimore-Washington area. In her later teaching days, Susan taught graduate leadership courses in the graduate program in nonprofit leadership and development at NDMU and consulted to national nonprofit leadership teams. She has been honored to work with a number of National Science Foundation Advance programs at various universities, a privilege to give back to the agency from which she received funding both during graduate school through an NSF traineeship and as a young faculty member through a NSF Research Grant.

After achieving tenure and the rank of full-professor, Susan broadened her education in the scientific part of psychology by training in counseling through a one-year post-doc in cognitive-behavior therapy sponsored by the Maryland Psychological Educational Foundation followed by several years of individual counseling supervision. She and her husband opened a counseling private practice where Susan still works part-time today. She is a well-known community speaker to church, civic, and business groups in the Baltimore area on diverse topics such as marriage, parenting, and time and stress management. Her consulting work with women executives and business owners led to her receiving a prestigious business womans award, the Mandy Goetze Award in 2004 and being selected in 2007 as one of the top 100 minority and women owned businesses in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Currently, Susan divides her time between her local counseling practice and her faculty development consultation business, providing faculty development workshops and consultations on college campuses and at higher education conferences to professors who want to work productively and live happily.

Acknowledgments

Many people have contributed to the creation of this work. I am grateful for the: