Book Review: The Academic Portfolio A Practical Guide to Documenting Teaching, Research, and Service

Review by Doreen Lewis, Ph.D.

The Academic Portfolio, A Practical Guide to Documenting Teaching, Research, and Service, by Peter Seldin and J. Elizabeth Miller, is the kind of book that belongs in the bookcase of every educator, plus on the shelf of anyone thinking about entering academia.  This is a “how-to” book on creating your own personal academic portfolio of your best work, for purposes of performance appraisal. The book also lends itself to preparing for upward career mobility in a most competitive field (e.g. university teaching) against a pool of highly qualified job candidates. The authors are seasoned higher education faculty who authored numerous books, and there are well over a dozen impressively-credentialed contributing authors acknowledged as part of the book’s creation.

At 358 pages, this is one heck of a content-rich, oversized paperback. The layout of the book is linear (chapters to be read in order), and the first 50 or so of the pages provide the substance for creating one’s own portfolio.  Pages 59 forward are sample portfolios from across disciplines such as biomedical engineering, child and family studies, education, English, environmental engineering, foreign languages, geology, nutritional sciences, pastoral counseling, political science, and psychology, as a sampling. Since this is a reference book, the index at book’s end comes in quite handy for locating very specific topics that might be a nuance of desired content in your portfolio and how to display the information (for example, keywords such as “grant-writing,” or “awards,” or “classroom observation reports”).

From a philosophical standpoint, the authors introduce the book as part of a response to changes occurring in higher education, such as a greater focus on accountability and performance at the institutional level. I believe continuous improvement is still a focus in practice these years since the book’s writing, and this will be important in the future, too. Prior methods of teacher evaluations relied heavily upon student evaluations and scholarly achievements only, which fail to describe the significance of one’s work. In short definition, Seldin and Miller explain that the academic portfolio is the contents of information that provide evidence in three areas: (1) teaching, (2) research, and (3) service.  The portfolio is not intended to be exhaustive, rather, it should be selective.  Some of the reasons cited for taking the time to organize a portfolio are to prepare for tenure, support an application for promotion, for a committee review, to map out career objectives and improve performance, to prepare a legacy before retirement, or to change jobs, as a few examples.

To get started, one must plan the portfolio and discern what material to include.  The authors warn against focusing on what’s “fancy,” reminding the reader of how many times they’d received poor student work dressed fancy.  The portfolio is customized by categories and subcategories and the reader simply would select the organization of their portfolio based upon what applies specific to their background and needs.  You can think of these chapters as a template, presented as an outline with bold headings and suggested insertions of language and supporting documents.  Recommendations are provided for number of pages, design ideas, etc.

For example, your portfolio would begin with a Preface section, which is an introduction and short statement of the purpose of the portfolio.  The next section would be a Teaching section, typically five or six pages long including subsections such as: teaching philosophy statement, new/revised courses, highlights from syllabi, teaching improvement activities, etc.  Within each sub section, a short explanation is written and then sample work may be referenced and included in an appendix. I think what the reader will like is the Socratic and probing guiding questions asked by the author to prompt thinking about what information is important enough to include.  Questions like (in the case of describing participation in civic or volunteer groups), “Have any of your community service activities made you are a more effective teacher?  Which ones? In what specific ways?” These questions help the reader narrow their contents so the portfolio doesn’t become an information dump.

A Checklist of Items for Evaluating Portfolios (p. 49) is a tool that provides a strong source of suggestions. The list was developed from discussions with more than 150 college committee members, and it is rich with criteria to ensure the portfolio you create is excellent.  There is a Questions and Answers section in the book (p. 51) which was created based on actual questions raised by professors and administrators over the years. These are helpful to the reader who may be wondering how much time it takes to prepare a portfolio, when it should be updated, how to collaborate on its creation, etc.

Finally, the sample portfolios offer ideas organized by discipline. Since my background is in the teaching of psychology, I reviewed the Psychology portfolio of Pamela A. Geller, Drexel University (p. 329).  I can see from the outline and where the writer focuses attention, that this portfolio has a goal for being hired.  Geller’s portfolio is written as a narrative in paragraph format; however, if I were to use this as a model for my own portfolio, I would present information in bullet points for an easier read. The evidence chosen to support this portfolio writer’s work includes a summary table showing growth of utilization of students in the counseling center she runs at the college. This table provides a visual expression of her success and demonstrates ways that the reader can highlight their own success by facts and figures, alone, without the discomfort of feeling they are overly self-promoting or bragging. Overall, the document example (about 20 pages in length), presents as a highly organized representation of an experienced professional who is a leader in her discipline.

After reading The Academic Portfolio, A Practical Guide to Documenting Teaching, Research, and Service, I find myself inspired to assemble my own portfolio. As an adjunct who, over the course of many years has worked in numerous colleges, I find the benefits of having a portfolio to be numerous.  Adjuncts tend to step in and out of the teaching arena, working a semester here and there, and then not teaching for a time. It is during the times between working at a university that other important strides in my discipline may be made.  I would very much like to show in the form of a portfolio that there is a tie-in and relevance between my teaching, research, and service, that link these activities to my qualification to serve in a teaching role, even if I have been away from the classroom. An academic portfolio makes sense particularly for adjunct instructors, and I am so glad I found this resource. The book definitely speaks to the adjunct audience, but it is also a great source for faculty at all levels, administrators, students, and recent grads. Highly recommend!