In a family way
As faculty members juggle an academic career with responsibilities at home, some institutions are revamping their family-support policies to remain competitive
par Harriet Eisenkraft
Bonnie Patterson remembers the reaction of most of her senior colleagues when, as a young faculty member in 1975, she mentioned her upcoming marriage. "They told me that being married wasn't an easy way of going forward because I would probably have children soon, which would mess up my chances of getting ahead."
Professor Patterson, now president of Trent University, decided to forego motherhood. "I learned I couldn't do it all, mixing an administrative-academic career with home responsibilities." While she doesn't usually regret the decision, she now says it was "an even bigger decision, at the time" than she realized.
Given her own experience, it isn't surprising that Professor Patterson supports initiatives at Trent to address work-family issues - issues that are sometimes unique to academe.
Across the country, administrators and faculty members are wrestling with how to harmonize the family role with the academic one. At the same time, North American universities have started hiring faculty members in record numbers, due to a wave of retirements and steadily growing enrolments. That raises another essential question for universities: whether they can attract and retain outstanding women who want both a career and a family, especially in light of some disquieting new research that says the university culture remains inimical to the combination. (Please see the related article "What the research says" below.)
"Women are asking, 'Can I be a good academic and a mother?' Some will try both and be successful," says Sheryl Bond, a professor of educational leadership at Queen's University who has researched the topic. "Some try to be mothers but don't participate in full academic careers. Many decide not to have children. And some will drop out." Dr. Bond, who has held various faculty and university administrative posts for more than 30 years, also co-parented six children under the age of 10 in a blended family and then became a single mother of two.
At issue is the very nature of academic life with its lengthy probationary policy and its relentless work ethic, says James Turk, a sociologist and executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers. "We still have a bit of a legacy of the male monastic order that characterized universities some centuries ago," he says. "A measure of your commitment [is] that you are willing to sacrifice your life to your career. By the time they get tenure, most academics have internalized that pressure."
A more enduring cultural norm for the academic career, perhaps, is predicated on the faculty member with a spouse at home, looking after the children.
The system's expectations "were shaped in the time when faculty members were mostly male and free to devote their entire attention to their research careers - working long hours, attending seminars at night, never taking parental leave or staying home with sick children, never moving because of their spouse's employment, [and] building networks based on people like themselves," notes Penelope Codding, associate vice-president, research, of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and professor of chemistry at the University of Victoria. Women "have struggled to adapt to and gain approval in this rigid 'alien' system, finding that the system discounts our talents, life choices and perceptions," says Dr. Codding.
While women in many professional and managerial fields are grappling with issues about work-family balance, academics face some challenges that may be unique to scholars. "There is this time when you are trying to establish a career and your research record, you are publishing, teaching new courses and acclimatizing to a new academic community," says Donna Lero, holder of the Jarislowsky Chair in Families and Work at the University of Guelph. "In that same window, you may also wish to have a child or you may already have young children at home."
What makes it more challenging is that academics "are trained to want to know everything about our subject," she adds. "The work, particularly the research, is boundary-less. Young faculty often ask me, 'how much is enough?' And that extends to the work in general, not just to tenure."
However, the tenure process remains at the heart of the matter. For many, "it is an almost traumatic time and it raises the pitch of difficulty if you're trying to raise children," says Sandra Acker, professor of education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, whose co-authored research study entitled "Sleepless in Academia" examines some of the problems that beset female professors with children.
New to motherhood
Lenore Fahrig's experience illustrates the kind of dilemma facing young faculty mothers. In 1991, when she applied for a tenure-track position in the biology department at Carleton University, she was two months pregnant. As a neophyte to motherhood, she found herself agreeing with the dean when he said she'd probably be more than ready to start teaching in January, just three months after giving birth. Besides feeling some pressure, she says she wanted to honour her commitment to create a new course for the department. As a result, she spent much of her three-month paid leave preparing the lectures.
In retrospect, says Dr. Fahrig, "I should have taken more time off. It was very stressful coming back, trying to teach a new course and take care of a baby," despite the contribution of her husband, a very involved father who was also trying to start up a business in a new city.
Dr. Fahrig, an ecologist who worked in government prior to Carleton, eventually got her research up and running and found day care for her son, first privately and then through the university. Today she is part of a department whose average age is younger than it was when she first started and where more parents are dealing with the vicissitudes of raising children. One colleague, Jayne Yack, gave birth to three children during the decade in which she finished her master's thesis, completed a PhD, deferred a post-doc for three years, and then resumed her research career. Another, Naomi Cappuccino, is a single parent who gave up a career at one of the top U.S. universities in her field to adopt a daughter from China and achieve a better work-family balance at Carleton.
Stopping the clock
Valerie Davidson, an engineering professor and holder of a new NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering at the University of Guelph, worries that too few young women in science and engineering are pursuing a PhD due to family pressures and a lack of female role models. Dr. Davidson says the option of stopping the clock in the tenure process is "a step in the right direction."
Some Canadian universities are allowing pre-tenured faculty members to defer presentation of their portfolios for a certain period after they give birth or adopt, with no penalties imposed for publication or research gaps. But Carleton's Dr. Fahrig says that although "a little more breathing space" at the beginning would have helped, there's no way she could have taken off a full year. When it comes to research, she says, scientists "have to stay on top of it to stay in it."
Science professors aren't alone in turning down the leave benefits that are on the books at some institutions. Are they worried about "not appearing good enough to deserve tenure or other opportunities?" wonders Dr. Acker of OISE. Or is it a form of limitless dedication?
Sheila Brown, president of Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, says, "I'm not sure the clock ever stops from the individual's point of view. If you are a scholar [and a new parent] you're nonetheless probably reading or researching but not being able to bring things to fruition as quickly." So Dr. Brown says she takes the long view. "Someone is not a lesser scholar for having taken a year off. Their lifetime production may be the same, it's just a different pattern."
In the United States, the American Association of University Professors advocates a policy of "active service/modified duties" that relieves faculty members caring for a newborn or newly adopted child of full or part-time teaching duties, with no pay cut. Advocates there say this is more practical than a "stop the clock" provision for faculty members at research institutions or in the sciences.
On the other hand, there's no conclusive data to prove that women with children are less productive than their childless or male counterparts, say the experts. And the "greedy" demands of academe, as one study calls them, don't disappear at the end of the tenure track, just as childhood needs don't disappear after the first year. "Real difficulty also comes after the tenure process," says Penni Stewart, a professor of sociology at York University who is conducting research in equity and affirmative action with Janice Drakich, director of faculty recruitment and retention at the University of Windsor.
Dr. Stewart and Dr. Drakich cite other building blocks of an academic career that can turn into stumbling blocks for mothers of young children: attending conferences, contributing to departmental committees, meeting other academics, writing grant proposals and attracting research funds. Faculty who give up some of these activities, even temporarily, says Dr. Stewart, may find themselves penalized when it comes to the recognition that brings promotions, grants, research appointments and travel leave.
To be sure, new fathers are also under pressure, even when they're not the main caregivers. Scott Maitland's child was born just after he received his promotion to associate professor in the department of family relations and applied nutrition at the University of Guelph. A specialist in gerontology and statistics, Dr. Maitland deeply appreciates the flexibility inherent in academic life, but says the flipside is the need to take work home. And right now, "the schedule revolves around the baby."
Like Dr. Maitland, faculty members interviewed for this article relish the autonomy that their jobs allow them, citing it as both a privilege and a necessity for their work. But, "there is a paradox here," says Kerry Daly, co-founder of the Centre for Families, Work and Well-Being and a professor at the University of Guelph. "On the one hand, they work when they want, but . . . the work is never done. That's part of the competitiveness, part of the attraction and part of the albatross of academic life."
Sometimes all it takes to create a family-friendly atmosphere is a sympathetic dean or department chair. However, if there are no written policies to enforce that support, misunderstandings can arise. A six-month pregnant Lissa Paul, for example, accepted a tenure-track position in children's literature at the University of New Brunswick's faculty of education in 1987 when the chairman assured her that the department was child-friendly. Four years later, and now with two young children, she moved to Toronto to be near their extended family, and began commuting to UNB three days a week while keeping up a demanding research program and publishing widely. The chairman made sure her class schedule coincided with her family needs. But in 1998, the administration of the department changed and, with it, the unwritten policy about teaching times.
"You're at the mercy of the administration for good grace. So much depends on the academic unit and culture of those who make it up," says Dr. Paul, adding that, "a scholar's productivity can flourish in a supportive environment."
Now, with faculty recruitment heating up across North America, some Canadian universities have revamped their family-support policies to remain competitive. Click on the University of Waterloo's Web site and you'll find a link to its "family-friendly policies, programs and practices," listing an array of child care, elder care, benefits, leaves, support services and programs to help its faculty and staff "balance job and family care responsibilities in today's complex and very busy world."
At the University of Toronto, family-care issues are a major part of Rosie Parnass's position as quality of work life adviser and special assistant to the vice-president, human resources and equity. "For a number of years, you came to work and you parked your life at the door to pick up on the way out. That's no longer the case. If you want to be a progressive workplace, you have to respond," she says. Ms. Parnass has served on several committees that have corporate members and says that family-friendly attitudes are not so unusual in other sectors. "They are starting to see that it enriches the relationship between the individual and the corporation."
All faculty at U of T now have access to a maternity/parental leave, where the university tops up federal employment insurance to almost 100 percent for 30 weeks in the case of birth mothers, 27 weeks for adoptive parents and 10 weeks for the second partners who take leave. U of T also has a "stop the clock" policy that removes research pressure from new parents who are on the tenure track. Since the U.S. doesn't offer paid maternity or parental leave (although some employers do to varying degrees), the parent-friendly benefits and other social policies have made Canadian universities such as U of T very competitive with equivalent institutions in the U.S., says Ms. Parnass.
At Mount Saint Vincent, where women make up more than half of faculty appointments, both male and female caregivers may defer a decision on tenure by a full year after a leave and then can expect feedback and reinforcement during their reappointment time. Mount Saint Vincent also has a day-care system that accommodates parents who need either full-time or temporary child care (for example, during a class or meeting). It's also looking at ways to help spouses of incoming faculty members with their careers. "We want men and women who will make a contribution," says Dr. Brown, "and we must ask ourselves: what is it that will attract them? People are not driven solely by salaries."
Even with family-friendly policies on the books, however, many say more is needed in terms of leadership and communication. "You still have resistance to these policies from individuals who remember a time when some people managed just fine without them," says Ms. Parnass at U of T.
University administrators are also looking at how they can accommodate graduate students who, after all, are potential faculty members. They're questioning the inequities in various loans and scholarship programs that penalize grad students who must study part-time because of parental duties. At Université de Montréal, Louis Maheu, dean of graduate studies, implemented a fellowship for pregnant students on leave "to stop the attrition. We want them to come back," he says. The fellowship allows students to step off for up to six months and is renewable. Since its inception five years ago, everyone who received the fellowship has returned to study.
Université de Montréal also asked a foundation to support a fund for students who are single mothers. This is important in a province where up to 40 percent of part-time graduate students have at least one child, according to the graduate students' council of Quebec's major students' association (Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec). The council president, Wenceslas Mam's Mamboundou, a doctoral student of political science and father of four, says his organization holds the government responsible for providing enough affordable day care and for offering financial aid and parental-leave benefits.
Support for the re-entry of postdoctoral students who've taken time off to care for children is also becoming more common in the research community. Dr. Yack of Carleton, for instance, says that her ability to refresh her grant with NSERC after a four-year deferral served as an important incentive to resume her studies.
Younger academics are telling their colleagues that they want to have children early in their careers and that they believe they can have well-rounded lives, even as professors. According to Dr. Lero of Guelph, family-friendly support at universities will ultimately benefit more people than just academics. Moreover, universities must set a standard for the next generation of citizens, she says.
"The [old] model boxes in men as well as women. If we want to have excellent people who are good teachers, sensitive and supportive of their students, they need to be more than uni-dimensional. They need to have an outside life."
What the research says
Some recent findings on whether women faculty can have both a successful career and a family come from a large U.S. study called "Do Babies Matter? The Effect of Family Formation on the Life Long Careers of Women," by Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden, both from the University of California, Berkeley. Their study (based on data from the U.S. Survey of Doctorate Recipients, 1973 to 1999) found that women academics who had had children early in their careers hurt their prospects for tenure, whereas the opposite was true for men. It found, too, that at least half of tenured women (and 62 percent in the humanities) didn't have children in the household.
Lately, other Canadian and U.S. research has highlighted the lack of accommodation for mothers in the academic system. Carmen Armenti studied different generations of women at a Canadian university in "May Babies and Post-tenure Babies: Maternal Decisions of Women Professors," (Review of Higher Education, Winter, 2004) and found that women plan childbirth around demanding work schedules. Dr. Armenti and Sandra Acker examined the fatigue and stress that shape the lives of female academics, particularly those with children, in "Sleepless in Academia" (Gender and Education, March, 2004).
A discussion paper for the University of British Columbia's Women Students' Office in 2002, "Family and Work Issues for Women Students at UBC", outlined the problems (including lack of day care and difficulty retaining qualified women) and made recommendations. The Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences demonstrated that women academics are not marrying at the same rates as their male counterparts and are having fewer children than women lawyers or doctors in "Ivory Towers - Feminist Audit (2004)."
In the U.S., a recent study ("The Mapping Project") by Robert Drago and Carol Colbeck of Pennsylvania State University says that many faculty who are new parents aren't asking for the benefits they're entitled to - such as reduced teaching loads, parental leave and "stopping the tenure clock" - to show dedication to their job.
University checklist
What can your university do to become more welcoming for faculty with young children and other family responsiblities?
- Stop the tenure clock for childbirth and caring for a young child.
- Consider spousal hiring for couples who both work in academe.
- Help spouses of new faculty members with their job search.
- Offer part-time tenure-track positions with "re-entry rights."
- Offer child care to tenure-track professors, especially the newly hired.
- Establish programs for children of faculty during school breaks.
- Supplement the federal employment insurance benefits for family leave.
- Consider leaves for the care of an elderly relative.
- Establish and communicate formal policies on family care.
- Look for ways to reschedule meetings, administrative duties and classes.
- Provide funding for student mothers and don't cut off scholarships and grants for part-time studies.
- Allow fellowship funding to resume after a substantial break for child-rearing.
Sources: American Association of University Professors, UBC Women Students' Office, writing by Mary Ann Mason, and interviews for this article.
That's accommodating
When a search committee asked Margaret Walton-Roberts to come for a job interview with the department of geography and environmental studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, she had a six-week old baby she was breastfeeding. She wouldn't leave the baby at home in Vancouver, so she needed child-care support.
"I said, 'you have to pay for my husband to come'," recalls Dr. Walton-Roberts. "The committee came back and said that it was no problem." Laurier offered her a deferred start and a first term without teaching so that she could apply for research funding. When she accepted the appointment, her husband took paternity benefits from Employment Insurance and stayed home for a year.
Today, with a three-year-old in day care and another newborn, she credits a supportive chairman for helping her get the classes and hours that work well for her. All the other benefits and policies are set out in a collective agreement. "It means it's standardized and provides guidelines so people know about their rights," she says. "It removes the opportunities for inequity."
