Modern Day Challenges in Academia : Time for a Change Examining the modern day challenges faced by academics throughout their working lives this timely book investigates the ways in which academic careers are changing the reasons for these changes and their potential future impacts. Contributors with insider experience of both traditional research focussed universities and newer institutions with an emphasis on teaching utilise theoretical and empirical methods to provide international perspectives on the key issues confronting modern day academics. Front Matter Copyright Contents Contributors Figures and tables Introduction PART I ENTERING ACADEMIA 1. Living the dream … but for how long Being an early career academic in the context of excellence 2. Career transitions from industry to academia 3. Career issues paths and motivations: career stories of four UK academics 4. Three scholars at work: making sense of the twenty first century academy PART II DURING ACADEMIA 5. Get me a job! Thinking about student employability 6. From euphoria to letting go: experiences of cross cultural adaptation of international academics in UK higher education 7. Exploring perceptions of academic management roles in the undergraduate student experience 8. External examiners: what do they do and how does someone become one 9. Signature of mediocrity Variability and uncertainty associated with PhD assessment processes in the UK 10. Providing research supervision: a personal polemic 11. The effects of control on academic engagement work life balance and work life conflict: is how we manage and what we measure actually contributing to what we strive to pursue 12. The balance between teaching and research: challenges and contradictions in the context of the modern university 13. Caring and coping: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of lecturers emotional labour in the context of higher education commercialisation and the consequences for staff and student wellbeing 14. The unseen pressures of academia 15. Apps and smartphone technology acceptance: lecturers likelihood of using interactive polling systems in the lecture theatre 16. Being an academic in an era of rapid technological change and distance learning education: views of faculty members of a business school.