FAMILY MATTERS PANEL – Friday, November 10, 2006
Panel members: Dr. Lisa Moore, Dr. Elizabeth Scala, Sara Sliter-Hays, Melanie Haupt, Dr. Beth Hedrick
The panel began with Professor Lisa Moore, who has two young children. Her advice is:
- Don’t plan too much
- She was glad that she waited; postponed until tenure
- Mentioned the Teaching Continuity Rule (A Texas law that no Tx state employee can take maternity leave)
- Recommended using the institution as much as you can, take advantage of all the resources available, don’t expect less for yourself because you have children
- She emphasized that you won’t be exempt from the pressure to feel like a “bad mother” or a “bad academic”
- Don’t be afraid to shamelessly enjoy being a mother, being an academic, or to shamelessly enjoy being both
o Sexism is responsible for our feelings of guilt for occupying these multiple positions
- Take advantage of the control you have over your schedule as an academic
- Don’t get talked out of that → feel lucky!!
Liz Scala spoke next. She also has two young children:
- She spoke about having children before tenure, and thinking you know everything you want and realizing you know nothing”
- A consideration when looking for jobs if you are thinking about having children pre-tenure
o A big department (like UT) = more flexibility
- You can plan things all you want, but it doesn’t always work out, “expect the unexpected”
Sara Sliter-Hays, a graduate student in the English Department, spoke next. She focused on the financial aspect of having children as a grad student:
- Comparison of the benefits found at other universities and at UT:
o University of Wisconsin: 9 daycares (all different kinds, such as drop-in, sick care, scheduled care, etc.), childcare stipends, funding for families
o University of Michigan: $2000 stipend for one child, $3500 stipend for two children
o UT daycare is more expensive and offers less services
o A&M’s daycare is less expensive than UT’s, which shows that UT fails to measure up even within the Texas State university system
- She emphasized that in asking for better benefits, graduate students are not asking for more than they deserve
- Other universities realize that this is a problem, and have put a lot of money and effort into these issues
Melanie Haupt, another English Department grad student, spoke next. She focused on her experiences here at UT:
- There is no place to pump or to change diapers
- Meetings, events, lectures, and potlucks all take place that span of time in which parents are picking up children from childcare, eating dinner, bath time, and bedtime
o It is hard for mothers to be collegial because of this scheduling; they miss out on opportunities to be collegial and to network
- She found helpful professors and a supportive graduate community indispensable
Professor Beth Hedrick spoke last. She focused on how to work efficiently with young children:
- Take advantage of the flexibility an academic schedule offers
- Faculty can apply for sick leave, but the attitudes within departments vary (some are supportive of one taking sick leave, while other departments look down upon t as unprofessional – example: some departments believe that sick leave is for when you are actually sick)
- When to have kids? You can wait, but infertility is also very real
- To get your work done, you must become more efficient
- Time management:
o Things you never thought you could do with a 2 yr. old – a lot of things!!
o Things you thought you could do with a two year old but can’t
•Mostly thinking and writing
o You get really good at using little scraps of time here and there
o Advice: Big projects take longer chunks of time at the beginning, when you are getting started. So, either start a big project, get it going, and then start a family OR Start a family, get used to it, then start a family
QUESTIONS:
- How to reconcile disapproving families with ambition/teaching/having children?
o (Lisa) It’s important for your children to see you disproving and working against this
o (Liz) “Contribution to community, state, and nation” – a part of the tenure application – you can think of yourself as fulfilling this by having children
• This is your personal choice, and having children can affect your career in POSITIVE ways
- (NY Times article) What about the opt-out revolution?
o (Lisa) The Mother Dance is a book that discusses getting husbands to do housework and childcare
o (Beth) Sharing childcare and household duties becomes a game of chicken: Who can stand it the longest? It requires an unbelievable amount of self-monitoring to be shared equally.
o (Melanie) Every time you come up with a system that works for you and your partner, the pattern changes and the routines have to change, and you have to create a new system
o(Sara) I decided to take a short leave. Sometimes leave can be detrimental.
- Is this something to bring up when on the job market?
o Don’t bring it up at MLA
o Things ARE changing, though.
o It is illegal for a hiring committee to ask you if you have children.
o Wait until the job has been offered, then negotiate.
To hear from others on this issue, check out a link recommended by Professor Diane Davis:
FUTURE PLANS AND GOALS
- Within the department:
o Install baby changing tables in restrooms
o Making the locked room available to students who need to pump or breastfeed
o Creating a grad student liaison between student parents and the department to let new parents know about these kinds of resources (Melanie expressed interest in this)
o ask Martin Kevorkian, Dan Birkholz and some grad student dads to
organize a panel for men
- Within the greater student body:
o Contact the Graduate Student Welfare Committee:
o UT can do more about childcare, but there needs to be more pressure
o Getting involved in creating room in the new Grad Student Activity Center
o Contacting Tom Dison, who runs Rec Sports, about creating/providing room for mothers who need to pump
- Contact (or start?) some kind of larger UT parent association (across departments, for faculty, grad students, and undergrads)?
o Collection of statistics: How many women are currently breastfeeding? how many people at UT have young kids? Need daycare?
