Happy Professor

Coplin uses his 50+ years of undergraduate teaching experience to present a series of roles, strategies and tactics to help professors prepare undergraduates for life after college. Through his courses and a highly successful undergraduate program, which he designed in the 1970s and still leads, Policy Studies, he has developed ways to increase student engagement and prepare them for careers and citizenship. He has students and alumni that number in the thousands over two generations who attribute their success to Coplin’s approach to teaching. You can check out his website, where more than 96 unsolicited testimonials from successful alumni who are now doing well and doing good are listed. This book is a self-help manual so that undergraduate professors in all fields can test out his suggestions ideas for themselves. College professors will be much happier because their actions will meet the needs of their students and society.

The Happy Professor is a clear, straightforward toolkit for those who want to meaningfully impact all their undergraduate students, and who want to have a happy, meaningful vocation as a college teacher., The instructional strategies and tactics presented in Coplin’s work have been game-changers in my classes as I try to move students toward confidence, competence, and self-efficacy., My path from a small town in Upstate New York to a career as a six-time president and CEO was solely influenced by my undergraduate experience under Dr. Coplin. His guiding principles and coaching makes all the difference.

Bill Coplin is Professor and Director, Public Affairs and Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor for Teaching Excellence at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University. An author of successful textbooks and more than 110 books and articles, he has also received many outstanding teaching awards over 45+ years.