Long-time TAA Member Phil Wankat has dug back into his TAA print newsletter archive, this time into the black-and-white early issues published between 1994 to 2010, finding more gold to share with you along with his brief commentary of the value of each article.

We will be adding these articles to the web page, “Articles from TAA Report Archives (now The Academic Author) with Commentary,” along with the other articles he shared from the TAA Report, over the next few months. The articles are organized into 12 categories, including Authors Needed, Bios, Contracts and Legal Comments, Diversity, Managing and Planning, Money, Production, Publishing first book, Recognition and Rewards, Teaching, Textbook Scholarship and Textbooks in Promotion Cases, and Writing and Writer’s Block.

The first set of articles we are sharing, in the Authors Needed category, include:

“Co-authoring a book originally written by another,” by Frank Silverman. “Look for a book that has an author who is retired, or close to retirement or, well, deceased,” says Wankat.

“Authors uneasy over Pearson deal.” “Big mergers ‘reduce the opportunities for new authors and even close the door on experienced authors,'” says Wankat.

A few articles are listed in more than one category. All selections were made by the editor and do not represent an official or unofficial position of TAA.

After 47 years at Purdue University, Wankat retired as the Clifton L. Lovell Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering and as Professor of Engineering Education in 2017. At Purdue he served as department head, Interim Director of Continuing Engineering Education, Interim Associate Dean of Engineering for Undergraduates, and Director of Undergraduate Degree Programs in Engineering Education. While at Purdue, he wrote eleven books on chemical engineering and engineering education. During the pandemic, he became bored and started writing the fifth edition of his textbook, Separation Process Engineering, which was published as his twelfth book by Pearson in 2023. He retired for the second time and has stopped writing books. Now that he has actually retired, Phil has more time to spend with his wife Dot and their new granddaughter. He also has more time but less energy to enjoy his hobbies of fishing, canoeing, and camping.