Making Our Expertise Visible

I find frustrating our lack of language to talk about differences in expectations between academic institutions. I think this is a vital conversation for mothers in the academy. When differences are occluded it also means that our work can be unrepresented, invisible, and undocumented, even to ourselves.This year, I am a visiting scholar at a very elite Research I university (I would define a VERI as a PhD granting institution with departments across the university that are regularly considered to be in the top 10 or top 5 of their disciplines, a staggering endowment, and world class medical and law schools). Anecdotally I would describe this as Continue reading →

Top 5 Problems for Faculty Mothers

There are a lot of wonderful things about working for a college or university and being a mother. Top on my list would be the way our most intense work periods match the time when kids are in school. However, in writing this post, I’ve realized that some of the reasons I wanted to become a professor (like being in charge of my own work schedule) are also some of the things that make being an academic with kids difficult.  While I certainly don’t think these are the only problems we face, each of them presents significant obstacles for mothers who are faculty members. Each of these deserves an entire post, but for now I’ve tried to be brief. Tell me what your biggest issue is in comments.

(These problems and analysis are taken from the research I did for Mothers Who Deliver: Feminist Interventions in Public and Interpersonal Discourse, SUNY 2010)

#5 Professional Work without Benefits

What would you think about a company that had a 200 million dollar yearly budget and employed 2000 workers, but did not offer paid maternity leave? What if I told you that company not only did not offer paid parental leave, it expected employees to continue being productive while on unpaid leave? Continue reading →

What kind of academic are you today?

One of the best things I’ve ever seen on the internet is philosopher Linda Martín Alcoff’s employment history. http://www.alcoff.com/content/emphis.html It starts with babysitter, has waitress at Pizza Hut in the middle, and ends with Professor of Philosophy. When I read that, I felt relieved and grateful that for once a well-known academic wasn’t pretending that being a professor was the only kind of work they’d ever done. I loved that Alcoff wasn’t hiding the kinds of labor she’d preformed on the way to becoming a famous academic.

I could certainly post my own similar employment history that would start with babysitting and include working at a McDonalds on a highway. Instead, in the spirit of Mothering in the Academy, I’d like to post all of the kinds of academic mothers I’ve been. Continue reading →