Academic Life is Good

Agree or disagree? (see below)

I happen to agree. Not to minimize anyone's stress in their academic job or to discount the anxieties that come with the pressure to get grants, publish papers, advise students, teach teach teach, travel, answer endless surveys from administrators who want to know about our quality of life but whose response seems to be to make life more difficult, and so on, BUT a reader writes:

.. from talking to male and female colleagues with kids, and having my daughter recently myself I find the idea that Academia is (more than other careers) hostile to family life to be hugely overblown. 

 

How many other jobs can you basically decide to set your schedule to be whatever hours you want, or even to work from home much of the time (I know several faculty members who have done this when they had young children and remain successful)? 

What other job lets you take 3 months in the summer to work on your own with few other obligations (some faculty I know work from home 4/5 days during the week in the summer)?  

What other career gives you 6 months to work from home or even another state if you want to, with no other work obligations, every 5-7 years (I know faculty who have taken a sabbatical basically to raise their infants)? 

And all of this while you are doing work you love that is intellectually stimulating, allows a standard of living well above average (and job security to rival a government job - even better at present!), and is physically safe.  

I am sick and tired of the privilege I see coming from academics.  Some people have to actually work for a living.  They work their bodies to death, and their minds to jelly because they have to.  We are lucky.  So, Damn, Lucky.  

What we need to do now, is convince more women of this and stop scaring people away with this idea that Academic science is some kind of hell that will destroy your life, your soul, and your family and any sane person would stay away...  I think maybe some people have selective memories...  It certainly doesn't seem to match with what you've described of your home life, or really that of any academic I've met. 

Imported Talent

The topic of a recent email to me involved a male science professor who wanted to find a female science professor to talk to his female students "about being a woman in the sciences and work/life balance". The MSP did not write to me; the woman he asked for help wrote to me. She was not having much luck finding a local FSP who would participate in this, so this institution was willing to pay to bring someone in. This is all very well-meaning etc. etc. but I would like to make the unoriginal, non-radical suggestion that women should not be singled out to talk about work/life balance, either as givers or receivers of information on Family Issues, even by well-intentioned men.

I hasten to say that I am quite supportive of groups of women who voluntarily get together to discuss issues related to being a woman in science and I don't mind (too much) being asked to talk about these things at "pizza lunches" with female students, postdocs, and others (although I would like to see these become less common and necessary). I also hasten to say that I know very little about the particular situation described in the recent email; maybe the women students specifically asked the male professor to organize something involving FSPs and he asked around to see if some colleagues could help. OK, fine. It is good to meet possible role models, especially if few are available locally.

What would be a bit troubling (and may or may not be relevant to the specific situation that inspired this post) is if the MSP didn't think that men would be useful participants in a discussion of work/life balance, either as givers or receivers of information.

Whatever the case: what to do? Because these topics are so complex and vary so much from person to person, it might be useful to have a panel discussion involving FSPs and MSPs, and open to all students. Another option would be to find out what the questions and concerns of the students are, and then compile information from online resources (blogs etc.), or whatever else might be relevant. Certainly many blogs, including this one, welcome questions and comments, so there could even be some interactive discussion. Or maybe this blog is not the best candidate for this, as my opinions of work/life balance as a discussion topic are summarized here.

Anyway, maybe male and female students have some different questions and concerns, but I think both would likely benefit from having an integrated discussion with people who have had different work/life paths and who view these issues in different ways. 

Let's Ask The Cats: Work-Life Balance

The result of Wednesday's poll was a big surprise to me: nearly 40% of those who voted went for the new-agey balanced-rock image as a symbol of Work-Life Balance. However, I sensed a bit of dissatisfaction with the options, and, although it may not have been clear from what I wrote in that post, I share this feeling.

 The Winner

So I leaped into action. After participating in some intense meetings involving likely-pointless but nevertheless Crucial Things, talking to students, and then working feverishly on a manuscript that never seems to end, breaking only for an infusion of caffeine-and-sugar, I went home and had a serious talk with one of my cats. The topic: Work-Life Balance Symbols, of course.

I told him about the flattish polished rocks as powerful symbols of work-life balance, and he was skeptical. Because this cat happens to be an experimentalist who likes to develop theoretical models to explain complex interrelated systems and because I happened to have a bunch of these rocks handy, we decided to to make our own symbolic work-life balance rock-tower. But because these things are rather unstable (no kidding, that's probably the point), we decided to make our rock-tower an extraorindarily powerful and versatile symbol by gluing the rocks together with superglue.

Once we had stabilized our work-life balance rock-tower, we knew what we had to do: take a nap. Actually, no! There was no time for that! It was photo time!! My cat and I conspired to create our own images to symbolize not simply work-life balance (because we don't even really know what that means), but instead to try to show the real-life consequences of seeking a work-life balance symbol. That's when our project became a bit circular, but here are the results:

Here we use a tilted work-life balance tower to symbolize the imbalance that can afflict those who do not nap sufficiently during the day because they have to spend all this time stacking rocks into towers, or whatever.

Here my cat was saying: work-life-work-life-work-life-work-life-phooey

The search for work-life balance can be overwhelming at times, and probably isn't really worth it.

In this photo, my cat cleverly adopted a blank stare to emphasize the dire and perhaps damaging effects on the psyche resulting from a too-rigid definition of work-life balance, undermining attempts to create a symbol that isn't bizarre.

The ultimate image: the real-life consequences of the search for the mythical work-life balance symbol.

Picture It: Work-Life Balance

On occasion, I seek out images of Work-Life Balance (WLB), and today I decided that it was time to share some of my image-research results, inspired by assorted posts on WLB on other blogs this week (for example, here and here).

Here's how it started, this image-research: Every once in a while, I encounter an image that attempts to depict the challenges of Work-Life Balance. I find most of these disturbing, disappointing, and/or bizarre. Some don't even illustrate what the accompanying text is attempting to say. For example, if your message is that Work-Life Balance Is Possible, why show something impossible in the illustration? If you are writing about the particular difficulty of WLB for mothers with young children, why have an illustration of a frazzled man in a suit? etc. There may be a disconnect between the people doing the writing and the people providing the graphics. This is obvious from even a cursory search of WLB images.

Nevertheless, I started actively searching for WLB images, for no real reason, and I have even tried to create one of my own, with less than satisfactory results. It's difficult. Clearly.

I am sure you can easily guess some of the major elements in typical WLB images. The Big Three are:

• scales, balances, see-saws (I hate these); non-rigorously-tested observation: about equal numbers of these either show "work" and "life" as balanced or show "work" tipping the scale. Rare ones show "life" tipping the scale;
• people (typically women) apparently juggling lots of different fake objects (I hate these too);
• road signs (at 90° or 180° to each other) (more hate);

with a not-insignificant number of:

• Venn diagrams (snore).

Slightly more interesting, though not necessarily better, are:

• people (typically men in suits) on bicycles;
• people (typically women) doing more than one thing at once, in some cases with more than 2 arms;
• rounded beach pebbles in piles or other precarious configurations.

In my non-extensive, non-systematic search, I found no images with cats. I think that is worth noting.

There are, however, a lot of clocks, of the old fashioned tick-tock kind, many with alarm bells.

Does anyone actually like WLB images involving scales?: for example, with the word "work" on one side and "life" on the other. Let's find out! A poll for choosing which of the following images you think is the best, most evocative, accurate, and/or compelling WLB image is below a series of images that I found online. The heading of each image is a link to the source of that image, and biased editorial comments are in the captions.

WLB 1

Here is a slightly-more-interesting-than-usual example of the balance/see-saw type of WLB image. Is that a man-figure balanced between a child-clinging-to-woman-who-is-turning-away-slightly and a clock that seems to represent work? Why is the man-figure falling backwards? I personally hate this image, but don't let that influence you. Do you think this shows 11 AM or 11 PM?


WLB 2

This one shows up in more than one place, and I'm not sure what the original source is. Again, I don't want to influence your vote or anything, but I am not fond of this one because the guy in the suit seems to be balancing a briefcase with nothing. What does that even mean? Also, the terrain is a bit flat, so I am unimpressed overall with this image.





WLB 3

zzzzzzzz. These things almost always have a laptop and a baby. The other stuff varies: briefcases, cell phones, hobby items blah blah blah.






WLB 4

An example of a road sign image. One bizarre thing about this one is that it is associated with the headline "Work Life Balance - Yes!". And yet, the image screams "Work or Life: You Choose, or Go In A Totally Different Direction for Balance". Or something.


WLB 5

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! This may be the one I hate the most! This one tempted me to change the contest from voting on the best image to voting on the most appalling, but I decided not to 'go negative' with the contest. I hope at the very least that she is ironing her own shirt.

WLB 6

This one isn't as bad as the typical "scale/balance" image, mostly because it asks the cosmic question: which rock = work and which rock = life? It doesn't seem to matter! This is a very positive image, even if I don't believe it is "real".


WLB 7

More rocks! There are quite a few of these beach-pebble images, with rocks in towers, cairns, apparently precarious but structurally sound arches etc. Why?? Is it because roundish flattish pebbles such as can be found on some beaches can be balanced up to a point and that is a powerful, gender-neutral image?





WLB 8

Whoa. The woman is balancing the kids and the man in the suit is.. what? Walking towards them to help? Is he insane? He should walk the other way or the whole thing will tip over?!

WLB 9

This might as well be a photo of me at work when my daughter was an infant, except that computer monitors were not as flat and cell phones weren't as common and also my daughter took her work as my research assistant much more seriously than this frivolous baby and my daughter was much much cuter. Other than that, this is an inspiring photo for all professional women.

WLB 10

The railroad track imagery is a bit disturbing. Is there a train coming? Is this person suicidal? A dare-devil? Where is that right foot about to land? Is there a "third rail"? Is this person wearing clothes or did they forget to put them on owing to problems with work-life balance?

There are of course many more image and types of images, but I think is time for reflection and voting now. You will have to decide how you define "favorite", but if the poll settings work as they should, you can vote for more than one "favorite".

Vote for your favorite WLB image
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pollcode.com free polls

One Man & a Baby

A couple of years ago, I mused about what I called "TMI Talks" -- professional talks in which the speaker inserts a lot (too much?) personal information that is not at all relevant to the talk topic. Is this unprofessional and annoying (particularly if the talk isn't very good otherwise) or is it a nice example of showing that scientists (and others) are human and there is more to life than just research? Curmudgeon that I am, I came down on the side of believing that most of this personal info should be left out of professional talks. A bit is OK, but not a lot.

Today in Scientopia, I discuss a somewhat-related topic, related to the relentless out-of-context mention (by men and women) of their parenting activities. Annoying or cute? Unprofessional or a normal part of the slow move towards more family-friendly culture in academe? Does it matter (to you) if it's a man or a woman bringing up baby (in conversation)?

X-People

Perhaps you have heard the expression, "If you want something done, ask a busy person." Some people are able to get a lot done, and adding one or four more things to the list doesn't slow them down. Let's call this type of person Type W.

Then there are Type X people, and I am going to classify them, for the sake of discussion and Pseudo-Scientific Rigor, as Type X1 and Type X2. Type X people -- in general, with all other factors being equal -- don't get as much done as Type W people.

To explain the difference between X1 and X2, and to compare them with W people, I will use an academic example. I am not thinking of any particular person or people; this is a hypothetical situation. I am not (necessarily) talking about you.

Imagine 3 graduate students at similar stages of their academic program, with similar types of research and similar backgrounds and the same advisor. They are done taking classes and can focus on their research.

A Type W person would get a lot done whether they were funded by a research assistantship (RA), a teaching assistantship (TA), a fellowship, or whatever.

A Type X1 person would only make decent research progress if funded by an RA or fellowship. A TA would consume all of X1's time and energy, not because X1 is more devoted to teaching than W, but because X1 can only focus on one thing at a time.

A Type X2 person would get more done if partially funded by an RA or fellowship and partially by something requiring a bit of structured work -- for example, perhaps teaching one lab or discussion section, or perhaps doing some grading or other work like that. If funded entirely by an RA or fellowship, X2 wouldn't be able to deal effectively with the lack of structure and would waste a lot of time, making very slow progress, even if the advisor set specific goals.

Actually, I can think of one real example of W vs. X, and I have written about this before. Back in days of yore, my own graduate advisor gave an RA to another student instead of to me, saying that I would get a lot done even if I were a TA, whereas the other student would only get work done if an RA.

At the time, I felt like I was being punished for being a Type W person and the other student was being rewarded for being an X. Now, as a grad advisor doling out limited funds within the limited time frame of a grant, I can understand it better. I also want to mention that the other student in question was, and still is, my friend, and that I did not blame him for being an X-person.

Explanatory note about grad funding in my field: Many students are funded by a mixture of types of support over time; some RA, some TA, some fellowship. Advisors make decisions from year to year about the type of support for each student. If we requested 12 months of support for a student on a grant for the entire duration of the grant, the budget would explode, leaving no money for the actual research, so my colleagues and I typically ask for partial support, and make up the rest with TA or other sources of research support, or the student gets a fellowship, etc.

With that in mind, my question now is how (and whether) to distinguish between the X1's and the X2's.

I guess 'whether' is the more first-order question: In cases involving making choices for a particular grant/project, would you -- the advisor -- take into account work habits like the W vs. X scenarios described above when making decisions about support?

And if you do, would you make a distinction, like I did, between X1 and X2? Would you distinguish them by trial-and-error, or is there some magic formula you can use to predict (barring routine and unpredictable research setbacks) how cost effective someone will be? I think not, and I have mostly given up trying to guess.

My current strategy, which is not obviously better than anything else I have ever tried, is to accumulate as much grad support as possible, give students the benefit of the doubt as much as possible, distribute grad support in the way that makes the most sense for research and human resource priorities (what needs to get done when and by whom?), and hope for the best.

Nevertheless, when making some decisions and when trying to understand how people work best, I think it is useful to think about W vs. X, and more vs. less structure, and to explore ways to stretch grant funding to the maximum extent possible to cover as many students as possible for as long as possible. That is the goal. Would you also like to see me pull a rabbit out of a hat? Too bad, I can't do that either, and not just because I have no training or authorization for the use of magical animal subjects in research.

Over There

For various nanosociologistical reasons, my family and I are temporarily living in a house that is not our usual house. Our usual house, which I adore, is over there, closer to campus. Our temporary house is over here, at a much greater distance from campus. Today I realized that, in my academic life (age 18 to present):

I HAVE NEVER LIVED THIS FAR FROM CAMPUS.

Not from this campus; not from any campus. Not as an undergrad, grad, postdoc, and not during any of my various incarnations as various types of professors at various institutions, here and abroad. I have never lived this far from campus ever before.

Is this good or bad?

I think it is bad. I do not like it.

Living near campus means that campus (specifically: my office) is easily accessible, in some cases by walking or biking, and it's easy to go back to work at night. Living far from campus means a commute, and decreases the chances of my zipping over to the office in the evening, or anytime I want.

Living near campus means that we can easily survive as a one-car family. Living far from campus makes this difficult.

Some near-campus neighborhoods, such as the one I usually inhabit, are interesting places with a diverse population. They are festooned with cafes and other nice places to which you can walk.

Over here, in my temporary, far-from-campus neighborhood, I can walk to a mini-mart and a strip mall.

What if I had to live over here? Would my entire attitude about my life and job change? Instead of being a happy, optimistic person with a sunny view of life and work, would I become an embittered commuter, obsessed with traffic reports and emotionally detached from campus life? Would I make voting decisions based on the price of gas?

How much are we affected by the details of where we live?

I use the word details to signify that I am not comparing being homeless, cold, and hungry with living comfortably in a beachfront mansion. I am discussing the very limited, academic context of where and how we live relative to our jobs on campus.

In fact, some of my colleagues live over here by choice. There are advantages and disadvantages to living over here, and everyone weighs the pros and cons in a different way. My colleagues who live over here by choice seem quite happy with their choice. It would not, however, be my choice. Not at all.

If I had to live over here, I think my overall happiness would be somewhat eroded -- probably not significantly, but there would be more day-to-day irritations that might result in my being a slightly more cranky person. I might have to adjust my work habits, consume more (or less) caffeine, and get a few more cats in order to maintain equilibrium. I would adjust somehow, but I am glad that I don't really have to, and my stay over here is quite temporary.

Academic readers: Assuming you have a choice in where to live: do you choose to live near campus or far from campus?

By the way

Although this exact scenario no longer applies to the reader who sent me the question, I was nevertheless intrigued by the situation because it seems like a near-perfect storm of complex personal situations that can arise during the negotiation stage of a faculty hire. Consider:

Some of us have been in the situation of getting an offer of a faculty position and then having to bring up the fact that our spouse is also searching for an academic position and would it be possible to hire a second person as well? In some cases, the two-body problem is common knowledge throughout the process, and in some cases it is news to the hiring department.

And some of us have been in the situation of getting an offer and then at some point needing to bring up the fact that we are going to give birth just before or soon after starting our new faculty position.

I was in both situations, but consecutively. When my husband and I were hired at our current university, there was a gap of about 3 months between signing the contracts and my calling up the department head to have an "Oh, by the way.." conversation. He was very nice about it, mentioned that other faculty had young children, and emphasized that the department was family-friendly. I had been very nervous about calling him, but everything turned out fine.

But what if you are in both situations at once? When and how do you communicate about these issues with the department head or other administrators?

My advice is to bring up the spouse situation soon after getting the offer if you are going to be asking for some sort of second position. That is necessarily going to be part of your negotiations and decision.

Issues involving parenthood, however, are not typically part of the negotiations, although I know some faculty and administrators who have circumvented the long waiting list at on-campus childcare centers by making guaranteed childcare a part of the negotiations. Unless there is some practical reason why you need to announce your parental status, however, I don't think you should bring it up if you aren't comfortable doing so and if it is not relevant to the negotiations.

Some women feel that it is deceptive not to mention it at an early stage, including before the contract is signed. If you are going to ask for family leave or tenure clock stoppage very soon after arriving, administrators would certainly want to know this as soon as possible, but it is not deceptive if you wait to convey the information.

That would be my preference, but only because it makes sense to me to separate 'things that are relevant to the negotiations' from 'things that are not'. What I don't know is whether or how making an early announcement of pregnancy (i.e., before the contract is signed) might affect the negotiations. Could it weaken your negotiating position?

Or am I wrong that it is in fact useful information at the negotiating stage, and, if you have a family-friendly department head, you can work out an amenable arrangement re. teaching (for example) proactively, as part of your hiring?

If you have any direct or indirect experience with needing to tell your new department "By the way, I'm in the family way..", I hope you will share your story and note (1) when you told, (2) why you decided to tell when you did, and (3) how things went.

Would You Hire Her?

Below is a slightly edited excerpt from a recent e-mail from a reader. Some details have been generalized to make the scenario a bit more.. general.

I'm a 30-something Physical Science PhD. I finished my PhD a few years ago, just before my middle child was born. Since then I have been primarily a stay-at-home mom, but I have remained involved with my collaboration in a low-level way - I've worked with my collaborators to finalize our analysis and to write and publish the associated paper, given some seminars, and traveled to give talks at conferences. Last year, my former advisor noticed that I had been doing quite a bit of work for free and offered to pay me by the hour, so I am currently working 0-10 hours per week. Recently, I have been writing a paper and looking into the possibility of a new analysis.

My third (and final) child is now over a year old and I am applying for postdoc positions. My CV doesn't exactly have a "gap" - I have papers and/or talks for every year since my PhD -- but my unusual situation obviously requires some explanation. I have added "stay-at-home mother, no employer" to my CV and I explain in more detail in the cover letter.

I'm wondering how all this is going to be viewed by the professors with whom I'm applying to work. I was a good student in a high-ranking department, my thesis was a high-profile analysis, and my advisor tells me that his letter of recommendation is quite enthusiastic, so I should be a strong candidate unless people see the time with my kids as a deal breaker. I'm curious how you would feel about an application like mine and if you have any thoughts on how I am handling the topic in my applications. It would be very helpful to hear any concerns you might have about hiring someone in my situation - especially things that you wouldn't actually bring up with a candidate.

I would hire her, and I would have no hesitations or concerns about doing so.

Her record or accomplishments and research potential is strong, the letter of recommendation from the PhD advisor is apparently strong, and the evidence for an ability to get things done is impressive. I have had single, childless postdocs who got less research done while employed (by me) full-time than what this woman has done while being a "stay-at-home" mom with three kids.

Of course the final decision (relative to other candidates) would rest on the quality of the work etc. etc., but my answer to the hypothetical question of whether I would hire this person or whether the stay-at-home mom episode was a deal-breaker is an empathic yes, I would hire her.

In terms of the mechanics of the application, I don't think she should dwell much on the "unusual" situation. It's fine to account for a gap in employment in the CV, but additional explanation need not be lengthy and certainly should not be defensive or be the first thing in the cover letter.

The recommendation letter from the advisor could be worded to turn this situation into an example of the impressive abilities of his former student; what might seem like a liability could be a strength. This woman apparently has superpowers when it comes to being focused and productive.

Would you hire her? Why or why not?

And: What (if anything) would you like to see in the application materials in terms of an explanation for the stay-at-home mom "gap" in employment?

On Spring Break

A perusal of my posts on the topic of Spring Break reveals that I have discussed this excellent concept in a few contexts:

March 2009: my thoughts on the correspondence or lack thereof between my school-aged daughter's spring break vs. my university's spring break. Summary: I am happy when they don't coincide.

12 March 2010: a brief mention of the practical and emotional significance of spring break in the quarter vs. semester systems.

Also: A few scattered polls and discussions about whether we, as professors, do (and should) give an exam during the class immediately before (or immediately after) a break, and somewhere in the archives, I am pretty sure I discussed the issue of how advisors feel about students who use spring break for vacation vs. getting work done. I'm not all in the mood to revisit that topic today, but I do want to follow up on this:

8 March 2010: a poll to determine who will be off campus but working, off campus but not working, on campus and happily working, or on campus and unhappily working. This poll had separate parts for professors/postdocs and grad students. My vote was for 'on campus/happily working', and I would vote the same way this year. The 2010 results, based on 408 professor/postdoc votes and 279 grad student votes:

PROFESSORS/POSTDOCS
working: on campus/happy (44%), off campus (27%), on campus/not happy (17%);
not working: 12%

GRAD STUDENTS
working: on campus/happy (41%), off campus (23%), on campus/not happy (22%);
not working: 14%

So, the results turned out about the same for both groups. A lot of us work during spring break, most happily, BUT now I want to redo the poll, subdividing professors and postdocs. Who is toiling on campus and who is basking in Cancun (or their back yard)? Let's find out:

What are you doing for Spring Break? (PROFESSORS)
	off campus and working
	off campus and not working
	on campus and working (unhappily)
	on campus and working (happily)
pollcode.com free polls

What are you doing for Spring Break? (POSTDOCS)
	off campus and working
	off campus and not working
	on campus and working (unhappily)
	on campus and working (happily)
pollcode.com free polls

What are you doing for Spring Break? (GRADS)
	off campus and working
	off campus and not working
	on campus and working (unhappily)
	on campus and working (happily)
pollcode.com free polls

Half Time

Today in Scientopia, I discuss a reader's question about whether science professors (and others) would be receptive to the idea of a half-time postdoc.

What Would John Stuart Mill Do?

This is one of the stranger (but not the strangest!*) anecdotes in Higher Education?, a book by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus:

"When faculty members do have power, they often use it to resist. When [Colgate University president Rebecca] Chopp tried to enlist faculty to invite students into their homes so they could see professors in another setting, she found few takers. "They have tenure," she said, and sighed, "They do whatever they want."

Drat those tenured professors. There they go again, abusing the power that tenure confers. It would be much, much better if they had to fear for their jobs and felt they had no choice but to allow students into their homes.

Just because some professors work 60 hours a week and might want to keep some separation of home and work, doesn't mean they should be allowed to do this. And who cares what significant others and offspring (and pets!) might think about this? If you're related to a professor, their job is your job. Deal with it.

Haven't we all heard stories of legendary professors whose homes were open to their students at all hours of the day and night? Why can't we all be like that?

If we truly cared about our students, we would want them to come to our homes, gaze at our off-campus lives, and meet our families (and pets!) in situ. That way, we would not intimidate them so much and they would feel more comfortable coming to our office hours.

There are some professors, tenured or not, who enjoy having students routinely visit their homes and be "one of the family". Others want their home to be a respite from work, even if they do quite a bit of work at home.

I really don't see the reluctance of some professors to open their homes to student visits as a convincing argument against tenure or as supporting evidence for how little professors care about their students.


* My vote for the strangest part of the book is the paragraph in which the authors describe a "workingman" who "jumped on a subway track to rescue a child who tripped and fell." The workingman didn't think; he just did it. The authors posit that professors on that same platform would not have jumped on the track to save the child:

"We wonder if, had some professors been on the platform, would they have paused to ponder how John Stuart Mill might have parsed the choices?"

I wonder if that is a sane thing to wonder. Of course the professors would save the child. What better way to combine broader impacts, a synergistic activity, and outreach?

The Clock Stops Here

On Friday, I asked readers to name universities that do not have a policy that allows for tenure-track faculty to 'stop the (tenure) clock' for the birth or adoption of a child. There may well be such institutions that are not known to FSP readers, but so far, no one has named any university or college in North America that does not have such a policy.

If that is an accurate reflection of the situation, then it is time to stop calling for this policy as a means to increase the number of women scientists in academia. The policy is widespread, but it either hasn't had time to have a positive effect or it is not being implemented in a useful and fair way.

Universities and colleges need to make the existence of such policies widely known to faculty and administrators, make clock-stoppage easy to implement for faculty and administrators, and ensure that there is no stigma or punishment attached to stopping the clock. For example, no one should be held to a higher standard because they chose to stop the tenure clock, and no one should be made to feel awkward or guilty for taking this option.

There will likely be some abuses of the clock-stoppage option, but the good will outweigh the bad. If the policy works as intended and is a routine option, perhaps academia will be a more viable option for more women scientists (and others), and tenure will not be seen as incompatible with having kids. I don't know if this will solve the continuing disparities described in report such as the one that motivated this series of blog posts, but it might help.

I have already seen much progress on this front. I have served on committees in which tenure-clock-stoppage is seen as routine -- just a useful piece of information to explain the date of hiring relative to date of tenure review -- and has no other meaning. That's as it should be. And from what I've seen, committee members who did not stop the clock (by choice), don't hold it against those who did make this choice.

It is clear, however, from comments to this blog that some individuals, departments, and/or institutions are reluctant to let go of the traditional tenure clock, as if this is time frame that cannot possibly be altered and maintain high standards. What if less qualified people start getting tenure because they had "extra" time? (or something like that)

Those who think clock-stoppage is an assault on sacred academic practices are kindred spirits to those who still routinely ask interviewees about their personal lives (marital status, kids) in an attempt to exclude those who stray from the traditional mode of the professor undistracted by ancillary issues (children, spouse, spouse's career). There has been progress in reducing the use of marital and parental status as a consideration in hiring, but it has never entirely gone away.

As usual, the problem ends up being a bit circular. It will be easier to increase the number of tenured FSPs with families when there are (significantly) more tenured FSPs with families. Perhaps as the number of MSPs in two-career couples increases and clock-stoppage becomes more of a general issue for men and women, universities will adjust to this important new reality.

Is that last statement cynical or hopeful?

In the Course of Human Events

As long as universities continue to avoid taking the lead on making policies about family leave for graduate students and postdocs, it's going to matter what individual professors (PIs) think about such things. So, if you are a graduate student or postdoc who is concerned about work-family issues, presumably you would prefer to work with a professor who has a constructive attitude about such things.

How do you find out in advance which professors have which philosophy?

If you are a graduate student or postdoc who wants to work with a professor who will be accommodating (as much as possible) for "family events", such as the birth or adoption of a child, I don't think you can predict from the gender of the professor what their philosophy about such events will be. Whether an advisor is sympathetic to "family events" that distract their students/postdocs from their Research has nothing to do with gender.

I think that both male and female advisors can be more or less accommodating depending on their personality, life experiences, career stresses, funding situation, and mysterious factors no one can predict. It is not necessarily the case that female advisors will automatically be more "humane" about these situations; similarly, I do not believe (as some do) that female advisors are less understanding, especially if they are the dreaded single, bitter, and old FSP. And ditto for older male professors who don't know what it's like to have a wife with a career and/or who don't respect young male professors who want to spend time with their kids (and spouse). Such people exist, but there is no general rule about gender or generation that will reveal to you someone's likely advising philosophy.

Whether a professor is also a parent also isn't a good indicator of their advising philosophy re. advisees who start families. For example, advisors who are also parents may or may not be sympathetic to their advisees who become parents. In fact, I know some advisor/parents who are less understanding about work/life challenges because they are afflicted with the "I suffered, so you should too" syndrome. I, for one, don't want hear for the nth time the story about an intrepid female colleague (or a male colleague's wife) who went to a conference or taught a class or was back in the lab within minutes of giving birth. (I am exaggerating, but not much.) These are not likely to be people who will understand if someone needs to rebalance their time re. when they are in the office/lab vs. at home.

And of course there are many advisors (female and male; old and young; with and without kids), who are very sympathetic to the fact that some graduate students and postdocs want to start families during their graduate/postdoctoral years.

So how do you find out in advance which professors have which philosophy? I suppose you could ask potential advisors/PIs directly, but you might harm your chances of being accepted if you started asking about future research disruptions before you even start, so you might want to be cautious about this approach. If this is your #1 issue, though, then you might as well be direct so that everyone knows where everyone stands.

If the direct approach is not for you, you might be able to figure out a professor's track record with previous advisees, or at least try to figure out what a professor's general advising philosophy is. That's important information to know anyway, whether or not you are anticipating a "family event" during your graduate or postdoctoral program. Ask around, chat with current and former advisees, look at personal webpages etc.

Or perhaps readers have other general suggestions or personal anecdotes of the constructive, illustrative sort. Have any of you used direct or indirect methods to investigate the family-friendliness of a potential advisor/mentor?

Family Planning

A friendly memo to tenure-track faculty who don't have as many publications as they think they might need for tenure and are getting stressed out about this:

Don't blame your lack of productivity on the fact that the wife of one of your male graduate students or postdocs had a baby or even on the fact that one of your female graduate students or postdocs had a baby during your probationary years.

There are various reasons why this is not cool, but the main one in my opinion is that many of us (male and female) have advised unproductive graduate students and/or postdocs (male and female) for a stunning array of reasons, most of which have nothing to do with starting a family.

It is indeed difficult for assistant professors who have to deal with unproductive research group members, no matter what the reason, especially if the unproductive ones are supported by a grant involving a finite amount of time and money (as grants tend to be). I definitely feel the pain of anyone who has experienced this. If you are in this situation as a tenure-track faculty member, it is important to communicate with mentors and/or your department chair and try to figure out the best strategy for moving forward with the research despite dysfunctional research group members.

Even so, the birth or adoption of a child is typically an anticipated event, so, assuming that your advisees inform you of the upcoming event, you can try to plan for the disruption of your research program. If possible, avoid organizing your research program so that your entire future depends on your research group members and their significant others remaining childless throughout your probationary period.

Another reason why it's not cool to blame your lack of productivity on the reproductive activities of those in and associated with your research group is that it's hard to avoid appearing to accuse women specifically for causing your problems. Your suspicion that other people's babies are incompatible with your tenure won't make up for a weak tenure file (which might not even be as weak as you think/fear it is).

If you are stressed out and just feel like ranting about research group (re)productivity to a friend while you're at a cafe, in the gym, blogging, or wandering the halls of academe, that's fine. Go for it. If, however, you are considering making your hypothesis part of your tenure dossier, first consider the people who are going to be reading your file: your faculty colleagues, various administrators, promotion & tenure committees, and so on. Some of these people might even be women and men who had (or have) babies themselves, not to mention that most, if not all, have likely had a wide range of advising experiences. Some may sympathize with you, but I'm guessing (perhaps incorrectly) that many will not.

What It Takes To Lead

A group of parents from my daughter's school needed to work out a carpool schedule for some upcoming events involving our kids' travel to certain Activities. I had been traveling and hadn't been paying much attention, but once I got home and tuned back in to domestic life, I realized that no one, including my spouse, had done anything about organizing the driving.

So I sent out an e-mail to everyone, summarizing what needed to be done when, and, just to get the process started, I proposed a preliminary driving schedule, noting that we could change this as needed if anyone had a time conflict with the schedule. I figured it would be easier to make adjustments to an existing schedule than to start from scratch.

Soon after I sent my e-mail, one of the dads ("Joe") sent an e-mail to everyone, acknowledging that it helped a lot that I had started organizing the carpool, and seconding my proposed schedule.

One of the moms then e-mailed everyone:

Dear Joe and others,

Joe, thank you for your leadership. It helps us all so much that you took the initiative to finalize the carpool schedule. blah blah blah

Katie (Hannah's mom)

Yeah, that was awesome leadership that Joe showed in agreeing with my plan. OK, I know that there are many benign explanations for Katie's awe of Joe's organizational skills and I am really not that fussed about the situation, but I can't help musing about the general questions that situations like this raise: e.g., Why did Katie think that Joe showed leadership, but I apparently did not show any such trait?

We will never really know, of course, but I think it is in the realm of possible -- and even very likely -- that this is related to the phenomenon in which fathers get major bonus points for being involved in school activities, whereas moms are expected to be involved. If so, then Katie's mother saw my e-mail as routine, but Joe's as special because -- even in 2010 -- it is more rare for dads to be involved.

And perhaps she was trying to praise Joe for being involved because then he would feel so wonderful that he would start attending the monthly parent meetings at the school and then he'd volunteer to help run the silent auction and coach the ultimate Frisbee team. And perhaps Katie knows that I am a lost cause re. all of those things and that the most anyone can expect from me is to be a driver in a carpool.

Again, who knows and, in this one trivial case, who cares? But it is not so trivial at a more cosmic level if women are not perceived as leaders even when there is evidence to the contrary. According to the logic of the scenario described above, a man is a leader when he agrees with a woman who took some initiative.

Actually, on second thought, I don't have a problem with that.

Academic Parents : Survey

Below is a link to a survey from a sociologist who is researching the experiences of tenured/tenure-track faculty who have children born or adopted in the past 4 years. If you fit this category, you may not have 20-25 minutes to do the survey, especially if it cuts into your blog reading/writing time, but perhaps you will have sympathy for an academic trying to acquire as much data as possible.

Has anyone has done a survey that follows parents of young children further in their careers to see how being a parent affects one's career at various stages? I am being just a bit self-absorbed here, as the parent of a child about ten years older than the target of this survey, but although being a parent is in some ways less intense as the child gets older and more self-sufficient, except when she loses her cell phone for the 4th time in a year, there are other time-consuming parenting activities.

A recent topic of conversation among some of my colleagues with offspring who have recently started driving is how the stress of having their teenagers drive balances with the relief of no longer having to shuttle them to soccer practice, horse riding lessons, or even to and from school. In fact, as I write, I am waiting for my daughter near the site of one of her favorite Activities, an event that requires 4.5 hours, including driving. I can get some work done while she's Activating (and also read about how cats, unlike dogs, have an "instinctive ability to calculate the balance between opposing gravitational and inertial forces"), but it's still a lot of time, with even more devoted to transportation to/from Activities over the next three days. I am definitely both dreading and looking forward to her being able to drive in the not-too-distant future.

Anyway, for you academic parents who don't need to worry about driving offspring for 11-15 more years:

Faculty Parent Survey

Hello, I am currently conducting research on parenting in academia. I wish to survey mothers and fathers who had, or adopted, a child recently (2006 - present), AND were in a tenured or tenure-track faculty position at the time.

If you meet these criteria and would be interested in giving your perspective on issues about combining parenthood and professorship, I invite you to take an online survey that should take approximately 20-25 minutes to complete.

The link to the survey is: http://bit.ly/prof-parent-survey>http://bit.ly/prof-parent-survey

Sincerely,
Laurie Petty
Sociology Department
University of Kansas
lpetty@ku.edu

Stay At Home

What % of faculty in your department have stay-at-home spouses?

How should you classify those faculty whose spouses stayed at home while the kids were young and then went back to work? I would not include them in my own count of stay-at-home spouses. My own calculation represents the % who have stay-at-home spouses right now, including those without kids but with a non-working spouse or long-term significant other.

I would also not include in my SAH category those faculty whose spouses have part-time jobs. Let's count employed spouses as employed spouses.

What is the % faculty with stay-at-home spouses in your department today?
	0-9
	10-19
	20-29
	30-39
	40-49
	50-59
	60-69
	70-79
	80-89
	90-100
pollcode.com free polls

Breaking for Spring?

Who is staying away from campus for Spring Break by choice (i.e., not owing to a furlough)? Who is doing this because otherwise they will have a dire childcare challenge? Who is staying away from campus for a week as a sanity break so that they can face the rest of the academic year with renewed energy?

Of those avoiding campus: Will you be going somewhere (preferably fun and interesting) or just staying home (and possibly working there)?

Who will be on campus but would rather not be there? Who will be on campus because if they don't, they fear the consequences (from their adviser, from their advisees, from a promotion & tenure committee, from collaborators)?

If you are a graduate student, has your adviser specifically discussed with you whether you can/should/will work over Spring Break? If so, what did they say? If not, what do you think they would say?

And who is going to be on campus because they want to be there -- to enjoy a week of relative quiet in their office, catch up on research, get ready for post-break classes, and possibly even clean their desk and its immediate surroundings? (<-- I am voting for this one.)

What are you doing for Spring Break? (professors, postdocs)
	off campus but working
	off campus and not working
	on campus and working (but would rather not be)
	on campus and working (happily!)
pollcode.com free polls

What are you doing for Spring Break? (grad students)
	off campus but working
	off campus and not working
	on campus and working (but would rather not be)
	on campus and working (happily!)
pollcode.com free polls

Family Event Productivity Loss

One of the interesting aspects of the recent Center for American Progress report, Staying Competitive: Patching America's Leaky Pipeline in the Sciences, is the recommendation that funding agencies and/or universities provide supplementary funds to "offset family event productivity loss". This recommendation is distinct from those about providing family leave benefits to graduate students and researchers. In this specific case, these supplementary funds would go to the principal investigator of a grant that pays the salary of a person having a "family event" and would therefore (in theory) make PIs less reluctant to hire researchers (e.g., women) who might have such an event (e.g., a baby).

Last summer I wrote about some of the issues for PIs re. paying the salary of someone who has a family leave. The new report addresses some of these issues with the recommendation that PIs receive supplementary funding to cover family leave for their researchers.

I like this idea because it might create a more family-friendly environment for early career researchers: students and postdocs and other research scientists, female and male. I like that it attempts to reduce the problem for PIs who, however well-meaning and supportive, may be harmed by a situation in which grant funds are paid to someone who needs a leave of absence and who is therefore not actively working on the grant's research for a while.

But I wonder how this would work. If I am supervising a graduate student or postdoc who is doing research related to a grant of which I am the PI, and that student or postdoc needs to take time off for a "family event" that will reduce or obliterate their ability to do that research, what would I do with supplementary funding?

Despite the dire world economic crisis, there doesn't seem to be a pool of unemployed or part-time scientists with the necessary training such that they could parachute into a project with a few month's notice, keep the project going for a few/6/more months and then hand the research back over to the returning grad or postdoc to pick up exactly where their substitute left off. Even if such highly-qualified and flexible researchers existed, this scenario wouldn't work for many reasons, including the fact that it involves the undesirable situation in which someone is hired to do some of the thesis or postdoctoral research of someone else.

In a few cases, though, it might work, depending on the project and the stage of the project during the leave. I can imagine some situations in which I could pay a graduate student to do some prep work or certain kinds of analyses, thus moving the project along but not complicating the situation.

In many cases, however, if I were handed the equivalent of the salary of a researcher who takes a leave of absence, the best I could do is extend the length of the project so that the work would get done when the researcher returned, just not in the original time frame of the work plan. That wouldn't help if the research involved time-sensitive activities, but it would help other projects, especially if the extension were no more than 3-6 months.

Are there other possibilities?

If you are a PI, how would you use supplemental funding to deal with a temporary suspension of a research project (or part of a project) during a researcher's "family event"?