The Role of Family Responsibilities for College Faculty
The ability to balance work and family responsibilities were found to contribute to overall satisfaction for college faculty - especially for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields - in a survey by the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) project at Harvard University. Overall, female faculty were less likely than male faculty to agree that their institutions supported having and raising a child while on the tenure track. Female STEM faculty were the least likely to agree with those sentiments and were significantly less satisfied than their male peers were with the balance between professional and personal time.
Although difficulty trying to balance work and family responsibilities is not specific to women in STEM, Cathy Trower, director of research at COACHE, suggests that the nature of scientific research may make work-family balance particularly challenging for STEM faculty. "The lab knows no official stop time - it's an unrelenting 24/7," she says. "It's difficult to just pack up and go home. Stopping for any period of time, to take advantage of stop-the-tenure-clock leave for instance, could be deadly to your research program."
Although the effectiveness of work-life balance policies were significant predictors of women's satisfaction in the survey, both women and men in science and engineering fields found child care on their campuses lacking. Trower explains, "Child care is a huge issue everywhere I go. Most campuses do not offer adequate, if any, child care."
Several of you have said that your institution established a child-care facility on your campus this year. Does anyone have any other examples of successful family-friendly policies at your institution?
exCS,
I have worked in industry for about 30 years now in physics and engineering capacities. None of the companies I have worked for, nor those of my colleagues, had on-site childcare. Furthermore, a large number of technical women leave the workforce after having children. It is sad to see and hard for the rest of us.
Women are a small enough fraction of physical scientists and engineers that they really don't get the concessions that some other disciplines do. As for fratboy stunts, you would be apalled at what goes on. I'm delighted to see that the younger generation seems better behaved than do the old boys.
Marian
Yes, this is one reason a lot of women prefer to work for industry because, at least for the biotechs, they get child care and childbirth leave in industry. Lots of companies have high quality affordable child care on site and if you've been there a while, you can negotiate half time when kids are very young, or other accommodations. Academia really lags in these areas.
Also, I've never seen the 'frat boy" syndrome so bad in industry as I've seen it in academia in CS departments. Fewer nude posters and lewd comments means less hostile atmosphere.
