1. Academic Motherhood: How Faculty Manage Work and Family at Early and Mid-Career
Kelly Ward
Washington State University
Lisa Wolf-Wendel
University of Kansas
Work and Family Researchers Network Conference
New York, New York
June 13, 2012

2. Goals for the Session The importance of work/family policies
Early and mid-career perspectives
Promotion & retention – focus on needs of academics with children
Work/family policies

3. Why Institutions are Becoming “Family Friendly”
To recruit, promote and retain best faculty
To address concerns about representation
To raise morale and increase productivity
To create more equitable work places
Pressure from external sources

4. Representation of Women in Higher Education
Approximately 41% of faculty are women
Underrepresented in administrative and in highest academic ranks
Women are underrepresented in many fields—STEM fields of particular concern
Underrepresented at most prestigious institutions
Reliance on pipeline to remedy underrepresentation

5. Academic Motherhood Work and family—either/or proposition
Ideal worker norms—married to the job
Tenure clocks ticks simultaneously with biological clock
Can wait to have children
Opt for less prestigious position
Decide not to pursue academia

6. Conceptual lenses and assumptions
Socialization—a very traditional view of career development
Life course perspectives—a synergistic and integrated view of life
Feminist perspectives—women and work have long histories of exclusion and either/or propositions
Started out with a view on the career socialization perspective from graduate school to assistant professor to associate to full to administration. A pipeline view. Drops from the pipeline are bad and women are leaks and deficit.
A life course perspective—out of the human development and life span perspective adopted by Phyllis Moen and colleagues assumes multiple points, cycling in the career, what happens in one sphere shapes other spheres—for women this means family shapes careers and careers shape families. A more suitable perspective to look at careers. Academics are consuming BUT they are not the only thing going on and a traditional career socialization view assumes a monolithic view.
A feminist perspective helps us to see that power, privilege and diffference shape all that goes on. The academic career and the structures that surround it are based on male models
So if we take all this together, what do we see?

7. What to do? Can women have it all ?
How do women manage work and family?

8. The Study Qualitative study Interviews with 120 women
Research universities, comprehensive colleges, liberal arts, community colleges
All with young children, all tenure track
Variety of fields
Interviewed early career (less than five years) and mid career (7 years later)
Case studies of departments
Reviewed institutional policies

9. Early Career Findings The joy of professional and personal roles
Passion for careers and families
This “joy” is absent from literature about pre-tenure faculty
It is not easy, but it can be done
Perspective making
I can only do so much in a day. Having a family helps me be more efficient with my time and also gives me much needed perspective. If I get tenure, great. If not, there is a lot more to my life than just my job.
Most literature about female faculty is negative. We leave. We get paid less. We leak out of pipelines. Deficit models. We have some good news in our findings.

10. Early Career Findings Buffering—work-family; family-work
Succeed without much support
Significance of supportive culture
Mentoring
Graduate school socialization dies hard
The second shift is alive and well
The tenure track is consuming
I feel like I need a breather after working so hard to get tenure. Academic work never ends.

11. Early Career Concerns
“Timing” motherhood—Is there are good time to have a baby?
Pressure of tenure makes decisions about family and careers intense
Academic work is flexible, but unending
Fear of using policies

12. Mid Career Findings Most were successful and thriving Earned tenure
Life was “better”
More flexible, less work stress
Easier to prioritize
Parental concerns shift
Changing diapers to arranging car pools
Not wanting to deal with politics
Hesitant to go up for promotion and move into administration

13. Mid Career Findings Burnout Need for self care Mentoring and support
Assuming mentor roles for new junior faculty and graduate students – path makers
Helped to create institutional policies
Lack of mentoring
You get tenure and you never hear another thing about promotion. There is no schedule any more. Can I go up? Do I ask? Do they ask me? How does it all work?

14. Mid-career concerns Lack of mentoring and support
Not a very systematic view about careers once past tenure
Individual drive shapes perspective on promotion and administration
More options, yet also limited once get established

15. Institutional Type… Each place has a pinch point…
Liberal arts colleges—service, small departments, face time, no hiding
Community colleges—service, few full time faculty, teaching/advising
Research universities—variable expectations and levels of support, grants
Regional universities—conflicting expectations, research? teaching ? Service?

16. Disciplines… Humanities—archives, travel
Clinical settings (vet schools, hospitals)—balancing rotations with other responsibilities
Technical fields—keeping up with new advances
English—grading!!!

17. Disciplines… Sciences Laboratory setting (plus and minus)
Place bound research (field or lab) need to be there
Pressure to maintain grants to support labs
Collaborative settings (colleagues and students) (plus and minus)
More options beyond academe and tenure track (plus and minus)

18. Policy dilemmas… Tenure and biological clocks click simultaneously
FMLA is not enough
Not just a women’s problem
Women are agents of action, not campuses

19. Policies Day care – affordable and accessible
Tenure clock stop policies at campus level with education to chairs
Move away from “making deals”
Flexibility re: tenure clock timing
Engage in work and family issues proactively
Review of benefit policies (repeat often)

20. Policies Family leave policies (paid/unpaid) Modified duty policies
One size may not fit all
Creating a culture of use related to work and family policies
Professional development for mid-career faculty
Dual career couple policies

21. The Fear Factor Not enough to just have policies Monitor policy usage
Looking at policy environment using multiple perspectives
Feminist perspectives can help examine underlying concerns

22. Book forthcoming Summer 2012

23. Questions/Discussion
Institutional type
Disciplines
Dilemmas
Policies
Questions?
Kelly Ward
Lisa Wolf-Wendel