Motherhood and the Academy

Sandy French Lisa Webster Radford University Presented at the annual convention of the Association for Business Communication October 2010

Dont Ask, Dont Tell

The general feeling is that professors who are parents sought to minimize or even hide their family commitments for fear they would be perceived as less dedicated than their childless counterparts (Wilson 2004)

Dont Ask, Dont Tell

Many female professors and staff members report that they felt treated like valued colleagues until they had children, and then they felt their colleagues' assessment of their competence start to plummet

BY THE NUMBERS
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Women Men

College students

Achievement of Tenure

FT TT and Tenured

Leaks in the Pipeline

http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/leaks.html

BY THE NUMBERS
Women leaving academia for private industry jobs American Council on Education models for flexible tenure-track faculty career pathways According to the 2000 census, which tracks professions including faculty members, physicians, lawyers, and CEO's between the ages of 35 and 50, women in the academy have fewer children than women in all the other professional fields (Mason 2008)

Social support networks

FORMAL INTERNAL NETWORKS

160 institutions of higher learning have some type of center for work and family life Massachusetts Institute of Technology offer a part-time tenure track, an extended tenure clock, and even a reduced teaching load at full pay for brand-new parents Pennsylvania State University research suggests that 30% of those surveyed did not ask for the offered parental leave due to fear of career reprisals

Social support networks External networks

Online publication Inside Higher Ed has a Mama Ph.D blog The Chronicle of Higher Education has a topic specific discussion forum on mothering.

Concluding Questions Value of INFORMAL social support networks? Differences in institutional TYPE and experience of support? Changes in FORMAL network policies and policy acceptance?