Tara Gray:
Scholar devoted to helping academics succeed
By Leanne Silverman

Tara Gray grew up in an academic family and always wanted to pursue a life in higher education. In one sense, everything has proceeded exactly as planned: today she directs the Teaching Academy at New Mexico State University and retains a tenured position there. But Gray’s career path could also be described as a long and winding road that took her places she hadn’t imagined—and turned her into an advocate of professional development designed to help fellow academics achieve their goals.

After high school, Gray joined the second class of women ever admitted to the United States Naval Academy. “I loved it,” she said. But as her sophomore year drew to a close, she realized “I didn’t want to have a five-year detour” in the Navy. She transferred to a college in her home state of Kansas and went on to pursue a Ph.D. in Economics at Oklahoma State University.

Gray landed a tenure-track position in economics at Denison University. Her early focus was on the prison system. “Most economists study the business sector,” she said. “What I studied fell into ‘public economics’ so it was outside the norm, but not beyond the pale.” When she was denied tenure at Denison—the market had become significantly more competitive between her hiring and the tenure decision—Gray found her background and training to be a better fit in the field of criminal justice. “I would rather teach criminal justice anyway, so I switched,” she said.

In shifting fields, Gray also shifted academic environments: from a small liberal arts campus to a large state university. “I came from a school with unlimited faculty development for each professor,” she said. “I was shocked to discover that my new college had no funds for faculty development whatsoever. I said to the Dean, ‘We’ve got to do something about this! We have to do some home-grown faculty development!’”

She began a peer-coaching program for teachers during her third year at NMSU, and the next year started offering workshops called “Publish and Flourish: Become a Prolific Scholar.” Those programs and others met with great success, mushrooming from on-campus workshops to national and international presentations. In 2003, she applied and was hired to direct NMSU’s new Teaching Academy, a center devoted to supporting all campus faculty through training, mentoring, and networking. TAA sponsors Gray’s workshops as part of its workshop program.

Why the devotion to professional development? “I’m trying to provide what I needed as a new faculty member,” said Gray. “They say that every great institution is powered by somebody’s anger. I have some resentment about being denied tenure, so I want to help people get a leg up on the process.” She invoked Robert Boice’s definition of “quick starters”: the 5-7 percent of faculty who do everything necessary for tenure easily and well ahead of time. “The things that those people do are teachable,” she said.

Gray’s book Publish & Flourish emerged from the workshops she offers by the same name. It serves not only as a guide for academics unable to attend in person, but also to flesh out the ideas introduced in the workshops. One key recommendation she offers is to write for 15-30 minutes daily. It is a habit that has become routine for Gray, like brushing her teeth: “My norm is to write for 15 minutes first thing each day. Some days I far exceed that. Occasionally I do skip a day, but it’s not usually because I don’t want to write.”

She encourages authors to pay close attention to every substantive comment readers make. “I don’t necessarily do exactly what the reader recommends,” she said, but she recognizes that when readers raise concerns, they are honing in on places where a manuscript should be clearer. “Try something different for every comment you get,” she advises.

Gray has worked successfully with a multitude of co-authors during her career: “I think you should pick your co-authors much more carefully than most people do. It’s not like you meet someone at a conference, you both have the same interests, and you decide to write together. You’ve got to really find out about and get to know these people before you go into a co-author relationship.” She advises academics to seek co-authors with similar levels of productivity and attitudes toward deadlines.

When she’s not writing or advocating for campus teaching centers to expand their focus into faculty development, Gray takes time to rejuvenate by exercising regularly and connecting with friends. She also enjoys teaching parenting skills to incarcerated women and Sunday school at her local Unitarian church.

Leanne Silverman hung her shingle as a freelance writer and editor in Denver, CO after leaving a 12-year career in academic publishing.