Pacific Soundings Press

Pacific Sounding Press was established in 1977. Originally housed in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California, the press originally focused on postsecondary education, publishing the widely-used and influential Handbook for Faculty Development (in conjunction with the Council for the Advancement of Small Colleges in Washington, D. C.). Since that time, having moved to Sacramento, California, Pacific Soundings Press began to expand its scope, publishing books on the state of health care in North America (Who is Wounding the Healers) and the state of men’s lives during their years of Autumn (Men of Autumn).

While Pacific Sounding Press expanded its scope during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, it retained its original commitment to producing books that offered practical advice on the improvement of organizational functioning (whether in postsecondary education, health care or other sectors of society). Books were published on the nature of an appreciative approach to Executive Coaching (Executive Coaching: An Appreciative Approach) and the creation of appreciative organizations (Creating the Appreciative Organization). Another publication directed toward those doing executive coaching provided tools for working with contemporary leaders (Themes and Variations for Postmodern Leaders and Their Coaches),

Each of these books is still available for purchase directly from Pacific Sounding Press–though each of these books is now in short supply.

In 2020, the Pacific Soundings Press reaffirmed its focus on postsecondary education and health, and established a collaborative relationship with two sister publishing houses, The Professional Psychologist Press and the Atlantic Soundings Press. Pacific Sounding Press will continue its commitment to providing resources to members of the highly-challenged education and health-care communities.

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Featured Publication:

Who is Wounding the Healers: The Four Cultures of Health Care

Authors: William Bergquist , Suzan Guest and Terrence Rooney

Those who are providing health care and those running health care organizations are themselves wounded. As a result, they can’t fully attend to the needs of those who seek their wisdom and assistance. We should be worried about the wounded healers, for if they are not well, then how can they help the rest of us? If hospitals, clinics, managed care systems and governmental processes are unhealthy places in which to work, then how can these institutions promote health and offer viable solutions to our pressing health care problems?

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Three critical questions evolve from this concern regarding the wounded healers. The fundamental question is: “who is wounding the healers?” The second, accompanying, question is: “how do we help the healers and prevent the wounding?”  The third question follows naturally from the first and second: “how do we make the health care industry healthier so that it might more effectively address the major health-related challenges now facing our societies?” The answers to these three questions are not easily provided. The health care industry holds a unique place in all our various societies. It is complex. It has an enormous impact on our lives. We are already trying to change it, in order to make it healthier and more effective. Yet, most of the time we tinker with the system without really understanding how it all works.

In Who is Wounding the Healers, we examine the basic reasons why health care systems exist and operate as they do. We propose that the key to understanding these reasons resides in the phenomena of pain and anxiety within health care, and the role played by distinctive organizational cultures in addressing this pain and anxiety. We more specifically propose that there are four dominant organizational cultures operating in contemporary health care systems, and suggest that each of these cultures have contributed both to the growth and accomplishments of health care and to the wounding of those who currently serve in the health care industry.

We identify these four cultures of health care as professional, managerial, advocacy and alternative. These four cultures are to be found in all types and at all levels of health care systems: primary care, hospitals, rehabilitation centers, health-related insurance companies, public health agencies, naturopathic and wellness offices. Furthermore, the current trends and crises in health care that center on managed care (in the United States) and national public health care (in Canada) involve significant realignments in recent years of the power and modes of collaboration among these four cultures.

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Featured Publication:

A Handbook for Faculty Development

Authors: William Bergquist and Steven Phillips

The three volumes of A Handbook for Faculty Development are now legendary. They played a key role in guiding the early perspective on and practices of faculty development in American higher education during the 1970. Their impact is widely documented While two of these three volumes have been out of print for many years, the one most often cited and used (Volume Two) is still available in limited quantity. As the co-publishers of this volume, Pacific Sounding Press is pleased to be able to offer it once again for sale.

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The second volume contains many valuable resources that are still quite relevant and useful for those planning for providing faculty development services. In the first section of this volume, different models of faculty development are offered along with assumptions to be made about each model. This resource can still be engaged to elicit important discussions about the future directions for a faculty development initiative. The second chapter concerns faculty motivation and offers resources for assessing motivation, while the third chapter provides a guide for preparation of faculty portfolios.

The second section focuses on faculty evaluation and instructional improvement. The University of Massachusetts faculty evaluation process is highlighted and many valuable planning and design tools are provided. Both the evaluation and planning resources might be particularly valuable  right now given the push toward education at a distance (on-line and digital). Faculty in many colleges and universities must take some instructional risks and do some major redesign of their courses.

In Section Three attention turns to personal and organization development as key components of any comprehensive faculty development program. Chapters focus and provide abundant resources in four areas: leadership, interpersonal skills, life planning and values clarification. The fourth section focuses on program development and evaluation–including tools for evaluation of faculty development programs. This section contains a brief, but unique and insight-filled approach to faculty development that engages the wisdom of community development practitioners throughout the world.

What does all of this add up to? This handbook offers many resources, many ideas and a comprehensive perspective on the critical field of faculty development. Given the major changes facing 21st Century colleges and universities, this book can provide academic leaders and faculty developers with valuable guidance and assistance.

A limited supply of this book was recently discovered. The first author has agreed to sign all purchased copies of this book.

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Featured Publication:

Creating the Appreciative Organization

Author: William Bergquist

Appreciative inquiry has arrived! This term and the underlying concepts and attitudes associated with this term are flourishing in the fields of organizational development and organizational consultation. The term appreciative inquiry has even been abbreviated as AI. There is much to appreciate in the progress made to date in the field of appreciative inquiry. Yet, more must be done if the full potential of AI is to be realized. This book is intended as one effort to expand the range of and deepen our understanding about the processes of appreciative inquiry.

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Specifically, this book concerns those organizational structures that hold the potential of supporting the attitudes and processes of appreciative inquiry. This is the next step in AI. We must identify the structural strategies of AI that will enhance powerful processes such as the four “D’s (discovery, dream, design and destiny) and the formulation of provocative propositions. These structural strategies also help to actualize the potential found in such AI attitudes as the valuing of alternative perspectives, acknowledging contributions and recognizing the value of cooperation.

Why are structural strategies needed to compliment the current process-oriented and attitude-oriented strategies of AI? Goodwin Watson, answered this question when he wrote about effective and enduring organizational change. Watson suggested that all organizations are constituted of three dynamics: process, structure and attitude. These are not priority steps in a systemic intervention strategy, but instead function as interdependent leverage points for systemic organizational change and/or improvement.  We can learn much from Goodwin Watson when considering ways in which the organizational benefits associated with appreciative inquiry can be sustained.

At the present time, appreciative inquiry primarily concerns organizational processes and attitudes. This focus on process and attitude is commendable, given the all too frequent focus in contemporary organizations on structural change. Structural strategies, however, must be identified if the practitioners of appreciative inquiry are to take the next step. In this book, William Bergquist introduces six distinctive ways in which to think about an organization that is fully appreciative in its structures. These six appreciative strategies are framed as the Appreciative Triangle and concern ways in which organizations generate and use information, clarify intentions, and elicit ideas that bring about movement to the identified intentions. Each of these strategies is directed toward the release of human capital in contemporary organization.

Throughout this appreciative journey, Bergquist turns not just to these six structural strategies but also to six ways in which the processes and attitudes of appreciation are engaged. At the interpersonal level, we appreciate other people through attempting to understand them. We also appreciate other people through valuing them and often seeing them in a new light. A third way of appreciating another person is by being thoughtful and considerate in acknowledging their contributions to the organization.  At an organizational level, one finds appreciative processes and attitudes in the organization’s positive image of the future. The organization is also appreciative if a concerted effort is being made to recognize the distinct strengths and potentials of people working within the organization. Finally, an organization is appreciative if its employees consistently value and seek to establish cooperative relationships and recognize the mutual benefits that can be derived from this cooperation.

This brief analysis clearly indicates that appreciation is a rich—and provocative—concept. Appreciative perspectives and practices are here to stay—and Creating the Appreciative Organization can make a significant contribution to this growing field.

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Affiliate Publications

Members of the New Global PSP Community publish books outside the three presses of Ash Point Publishing. Here are ones that concern postsecondary education (the focus of Pacific Sounding Press):

Engaging the Six Cultures of the Academy

Authors: William Bergquist and Kenneth Pawlak

In The Four Cultures of the Academy, William H. Bergquist identified four different, yet interrelated, cultures found in North American higher education: collegial, managerial, developmental, and advocacy. In this new and expanded edition of that classic work, Bergquist and coauthor Kenneth Pawlak propose that there are additional external influences in our global culture that are pressing upon the academic institution, forcing it to alter the way it goes about its business. Two new cultures are now emerging in the academic institution as a result of these global, external forces: the virtual culture, prompted by the technological and social forces that have emerged over the past twenty years, and the tangible culture, which values its roots, community, and physical location and has only recently been evident as a separate culture partly in response to emergence of the virtual culture. These two cultures interact with the previous four, creating new dynamics.

The Vitality of Senior Faculty Members

Authors: Carole Blande and William Bergquist

By the year 2000, 50 percent of full-time faculty were over 55, and 68 percent were over 50. Just when should universities and colleges in America make major shifts in their missions and their organizational structures, faculty members who were expected to implement these bold new visions would be out signing up for their senior citizen discount cards. Was it any cause for alarm? This book won a major award regarding research in higher education