My grandmother talks about "the dog days of summer" - those days where it's so hot nothing seems to get done.
Well, I'm having the "baby days of spring semester." Baby G. is getting more active by the minute, and I even think she's at the beginning of doing some teething (!), so that it's more difficult to get writing done. I do still have that book manuscript due: I think I'll have to start moonlighting to get drafts done. Typing one-handed was hard enough, but typing with a squirmy baby is much tougher. My maternity leave also ended on Tuesday, so I'm back at work doing administrative tasks. Most of these are being done at home, though I do get into the office for a brief meeting here and there (and bring the baby, of course). Hard to do that during these "baby days" as well.
It isn't just that Baby G. is more active that makes things harder to do, of course. The day care center called last week and said, "We have a spot for your baby in May." "I'd rather wait till August." "In August, she'd be too old to enter with the incoming baby class and therefore you wouldn't have a spot till she's two."
Hmmm. For those of you fortunate enough not to deal with day care, let me translate. The day care center tries to keep a balance of younger and older babies. They have twelve spots in the younger baby room (6 weeks to 12 months) and twelve spots in the older baby room (12 months to 24 months). The babies rotate in groups at the appropriate time (they move in May, August and January) so that there's always an incoming class of younger babies, and always a like-numbered group moving up to the older baby room. Since the total number of spots available for babies stays the same, the only way to get a spot if you don't rotate in early is for someone else to drop out. Guess how often THAT mythical experience happens? So that's why in May, Baby G. is good to go at five months, but in August at eight months would be unable to go.****
I didn't know all this initially and so was quite taken aback. I want to stay home with Baby G. till August, and I can do so because I'm on contract till May 15th (I'm presuming I'll be offered another contract that starts again in August ;-)): she'll be more independent of me then because she'll likely have started solids and by that time, I'll be screaming ready to get out of the house and teach some college students. That's how it was with L. anyway. I stayed home with her for nine months and was glad to spend the time but equally glad to get back to work.
I thought briefly about other options - I know of a couple other day care places that could probably take Baby G in August. But the upsides of this day care are that it is on my work campus, L's preschool is there, and it's a close walk or drive from my house. All good. Other day cares are 20 minutes' drive one way in the opposite direction. I had that experience the first year I went back to work - the 1.5 hour commute to get L to day care was not conducive to much family life at all. You can probably imagine yourselves how much better our lives have been as a family once we could cut that drive out of the equation.
I feel somehow like I'm robbing Baby G. of some time if I send her to day care in May - she'll still be nursing pretty much full time even if she's on solids. And I'm not sure I'll quite be ready to let her go.
I know, it's the conundrum every mom faces anyway, and I'm very fortunate not to have to face it as soon as most moms in the US. The likely thing we'll do is pay for May but hold off on actually putting her in day care till late June.
Still, the fact that time is swiftly running away from us makes me want to hold on to these baby days all the more.
****This is roughly the way I understand it. The director told me about all the quid pro quos too, which seemed to amount to: "SOME older babies will get in in August, but not yours." So the upshot is, it's all way complicated, involving waiting lists and other sundry info and it doesn't really work the neat way I described above. Ah well. This is why I am not a director of a day care center (God bless her) and I'm quite sure I'd have a hard time dealing with parents exactly like me ;-)
Showing posts with label maternity leave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maternity leave. Show all posts
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Friday, March 4, 2011
Academic Job Search V - The Contract
For other posts in this series:
Beginning a search Networking First Interview On Campus Interview Rejections
The contract stage - easily the most confusing stage of the job search. Lots of people make the mistake of being so overjoyed about having a job that they don't negotiate the contract. Sometimes that's justified, other times not. As I mentioned in Part IV, you want to make the job livable for you and the school has an interest in doing so as well, because they don't want to be back doing the same darned job search in a year or two or three.
So - things to consider requesting when you negotiate:
1. Salary - there is not generally a lot of leeway with the salary they quote you if you are a person entering the field for the first time. That said, if you have have another job offer, you can do some negotiating - keep in mind disparities between cost of living in the two schools' areas before pushing for too much, though. Also, if you've published a significant piece or two, or won an award for teaching or something else that gives you a bit of an edge, go ahead and ask for a bit of a salary bump. (By a "bit" I mean $1000-$3000 higher...) They can always say no, but sometimes they'll give you something - less than you asked for, more than you were originally quoted.
Do double check the AAUP rankings (http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/) if you didn't do this before the campus interview. AAUP lists each institution and salary ranges by rank (and make SURE you're looking at the correct rank...); the lower end of the range is generally for first and second year assistant profs in humanities; the higher end is for econ and computer science (or law and business, if at a university) with 5-6 years' experience. Make sure that the salary they quote is at the least on the lower end of the range for that specific institution. You can also double check institutions surrounding your potential institution. If there are disparities between your quote and your institution's range, definitely ask for a pay bump by citing AAUP. If there are disparities between your institution and surrounding institutions, you might be able to argue for a small addition in pay.
FYI: Many schools pay less for people who will come in with no finished degree.
2. Time - If you are ABD and anticipate still being ABD when you arrive, you can ask for a reduced course load or a delayed start to your teaching. (Say, spring semester rather than fall....) This can give you needed time to finish the dissertation (which, again, the school has a great deal of interest in you doing).
You can also consider negotiating a reduced course load during the first semester to get acclimated. I have known some people successfully ask for this.
Considering School C from my "Academic Job Search IV" post, I would definitely ask for "time" in my contract, especially since they expect a person to be heading up an institute. I'd probably ask for a course release for the entire year, and perhaps stipulate that I have only two new preps (academic slang for course preparation) per semester, so that at least one of the courses is a repeat.
I might request "time" from School B as well, depending on whether they were able to provide a good salary or not (which, remember, would be one of my big concerns following the on campus interview).
3. Time further out - You may want to negotiate an earlier sabbatical depending on tenure requirements at the school. Some schools automatically give third year sabbaticals; others may be research heavy but not give a sabbatical automatically. Knowing tenure requirements will help you decide this.
4. Maternity/paternity leave - You may also want to negotiate specific terms of a maternity leave or paternity leave even if not currently expecting and if your institution appears to have no stated policy. Here it is helpful to know the laws of the state where you will reside: New Jersey has a paternity leave policy on the books. Other states don't.
When it comes to maternity leave, I recommend at the very least negotiating that the semester in which you are due, you have no teaching responsibilities. If your due date is post-Thanksgiving, I recommend negotiating for having the Spring semester off from teaching. You should brush up on FMLA and also at least get the six paid weeks of full maternity leave (no research or service responsibilities either) but you might want to negotiate that for beyond six weeks too.
5. Spousal hire - Many more academics arrive with spouses who are also academics than in the past and universities have become more open to possibilities regarding spousal hires. You can request that the school help you find a job for your spouse.
6. Research equipment, books or money - This is specific to your research needs but often it is vital to have some extra funding to be able to do your research - consider a range of things you might need, including software, book allowance, specific scientific equipment, and the like.
7. Space - Particularly if you have special research needs, you may want to negotiate office space. As a junior faculty member, you will not generally have your pick of office space (which is usually at a premium anyway) but if you're the only researcher doing X and X needs a certain kind of space, you've got good grounds for requesting it.
Consider the needs of the school too - do not try to negotiate more than 2-3 of these, so consider what you need to make this a good job for you. Also consider, you will probably not get everything you want - ask for a bit more than you need with the aim always being to give yourself, and the school, the job you need so that you can commit to the institution for the foreseeable future.
Finally, those who have documented disabilities, do not be afraid to ask for the accomodations that you need for your work. These are not negotiable, but are important things to bring up at this stage.
Any other tips out there that I've forgotten?
Beginning a search Networking First Interview On Campus Interview Rejections
The contract stage - easily the most confusing stage of the job search. Lots of people make the mistake of being so overjoyed about having a job that they don't negotiate the contract. Sometimes that's justified, other times not. As I mentioned in Part IV, you want to make the job livable for you and the school has an interest in doing so as well, because they don't want to be back doing the same darned job search in a year or two or three.
So - things to consider requesting when you negotiate:
1. Salary - there is not generally a lot of leeway with the salary they quote you if you are a person entering the field for the first time. That said, if you have have another job offer, you can do some negotiating - keep in mind disparities between cost of living in the two schools' areas before pushing for too much, though. Also, if you've published a significant piece or two, or won an award for teaching or something else that gives you a bit of an edge, go ahead and ask for a bit of a salary bump. (By a "bit" I mean $1000-$3000 higher...) They can always say no, but sometimes they'll give you something - less than you asked for, more than you were originally quoted.
Do double check the AAUP rankings (http://chronicle.com/stats/aaup/) if you didn't do this before the campus interview. AAUP lists each institution and salary ranges by rank (and make SURE you're looking at the correct rank...); the lower end of the range is generally for first and second year assistant profs in humanities; the higher end is for econ and computer science (or law and business, if at a university) with 5-6 years' experience. Make sure that the salary they quote is at the least on the lower end of the range for that specific institution. You can also double check institutions surrounding your potential institution. If there are disparities between your quote and your institution's range, definitely ask for a pay bump by citing AAUP. If there are disparities between your institution and surrounding institutions, you might be able to argue for a small addition in pay.
FYI: Many schools pay less for people who will come in with no finished degree.
2. Time - If you are ABD and anticipate still being ABD when you arrive, you can ask for a reduced course load or a delayed start to your teaching. (Say, spring semester rather than fall....) This can give you needed time to finish the dissertation (which, again, the school has a great deal of interest in you doing).
You can also consider negotiating a reduced course load during the first semester to get acclimated. I have known some people successfully ask for this.
Considering School C from my "Academic Job Search IV" post, I would definitely ask for "time" in my contract, especially since they expect a person to be heading up an institute. I'd probably ask for a course release for the entire year, and perhaps stipulate that I have only two new preps (academic slang for course preparation) per semester, so that at least one of the courses is a repeat.
I might request "time" from School B as well, depending on whether they were able to provide a good salary or not (which, remember, would be one of my big concerns following the on campus interview).
3. Time further out - You may want to negotiate an earlier sabbatical depending on tenure requirements at the school. Some schools automatically give third year sabbaticals; others may be research heavy but not give a sabbatical automatically. Knowing tenure requirements will help you decide this.
4. Maternity/paternity leave - You may also want to negotiate specific terms of a maternity leave or paternity leave even if not currently expecting and if your institution appears to have no stated policy. Here it is helpful to know the laws of the state where you will reside: New Jersey has a paternity leave policy on the books. Other states don't.
When it comes to maternity leave, I recommend at the very least negotiating that the semester in which you are due, you have no teaching responsibilities. If your due date is post-Thanksgiving, I recommend negotiating for having the Spring semester off from teaching. You should brush up on FMLA and also at least get the six paid weeks of full maternity leave (no research or service responsibilities either) but you might want to negotiate that for beyond six weeks too.
5. Spousal hire - Many more academics arrive with spouses who are also academics than in the past and universities have become more open to possibilities regarding spousal hires. You can request that the school help you find a job for your spouse.
6. Research equipment, books or money - This is specific to your research needs but often it is vital to have some extra funding to be able to do your research - consider a range of things you might need, including software, book allowance, specific scientific equipment, and the like.
7. Space - Particularly if you have special research needs, you may want to negotiate office space. As a junior faculty member, you will not generally have your pick of office space (which is usually at a premium anyway) but if you're the only researcher doing X and X needs a certain kind of space, you've got good grounds for requesting it.
Consider the needs of the school too - do not try to negotiate more than 2-3 of these, so consider what you need to make this a good job for you. Also consider, you will probably not get everything you want - ask for a bit more than you need with the aim always being to give yourself, and the school, the job you need so that you can commit to the institution for the foreseeable future.
Finally, those who have documented disabilities, do not be afraid to ask for the accomodations that you need for your work. These are not negotiable, but are important things to bring up at this stage.
Any other tips out there that I've forgotten?
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Academic Job Search IV - Making it On Campus
For other posts in this series:
Beginning a search Networking First Interview Contract Rejections
A call for an on campus interview requires a bit of a mental shift in thinking. It is now about a 1 in 3 chance that this could be your future employer, so for the on campus interview consider that you're checking THEM out just as much as they're continuing to check you out. I understand that you will feel like you've got to take the job if offered because it's THE option you have but you at least need to make sure that it's a place you can make work somehow, even if it's not quite the location/job type (more teaching over research or vice versa) you're looking for.
Actually, location and job type are much easier to deal with than some other things you might encounter....
Consider the Following Examples:
School A) School A invites you for a 2 day job interview and promises to reimburse travel. The chairperson of the hiring committee also tells you you'll be receiving a packet of helpful information in the mail. Your on campus interview consists of a teaching presentation before an actual class and a research presentation, and the chairperson asks you to prepare your teaching presentation based on the readings the students are doing. The research presentation will be done before a variety of faculty members and is to be on your current research.
When you arrive at school A, you are immediately greeted by the chairperson and given the full schedule. There is someone available to walk you to and from each place you must visit, and your schedule includes meetings with the president, the dean, and a representative from human resources. You will also meet with students at a variety of times. On all of the nights you will be there, the department is providing meals. One dinner is with junior faculty, and one of the lunches is with a group of women faculty so that you can ask questions particular to these groups of people. In some cases, you may even be given "housing" or "town" tours so you can get a sense of the kind of living options in the area.
This is the ideal on-campus interview (And I am happy to say, really is the norm. The vast majority of on campus interviews I've had were like this....). This is a school that knows you're checking them out as much as they're checking you out, and they're giving you every opportunity to find out as much as you can about them. One of the big reasons is that they don't want to have to do another job search for your position any time soon.
So in preparation for all of this, you need to be sure you have questions set up for each available constituency you'll meet. (You will, also, always be fielding the same questions you had at your first round interview about teaching, research and how you see yourself fitting into institutional aims):
President/Provost: Where do you see the institution in five years? How does the department of ________ fit in to this institution's aims? What are some of the goals you have in mind for the humanities/social sciences/sciences division of the school? (For the dean specifically: What are the tenure procedures?)
Chairperson of the Department (May or may not be the same as the chairperson of the hiring committee): What will I be expected to teach and how often? (Very Very Important)... Will I be able to teach a course occasionally that relates to my research? What are some of the department's goals? What are the procedures for getting tenure?Are there opportunities for faculty to meet and share research? How often are there department meetings? Are there opportunities for interdepartmental collaboration? Is this a new tenure line or am I replacing someone?
Senior Faculty: What are the students like? What kind of direction do you see/do you want to see the department take? What do you like about working at this institution?
Junior Faculty (who will have been at the school 6 years or less) : How have you liked working here? What are the students like? What are the housing options here? What kinds of activities do people do here? (If in a small town, you might ask if people live in the nearest large city and commute, or if they travel there quite a bit....) Do you have any advice for settling in?
Undergraduate students: What do you like about the department? What led you to come to this school? What do you like studying?
Human Resources: (NB: Before going to your on campus interview, check out the average salary of your institution for your department and rank at the helpful AAUP website...) What is the process for requesting a leave here? (Note the singular, non-specific leave: this covers all kinds of leaves, including family leave, short term and long term disability leave, as well as personal leave and sabbatical leave) How often are sabbatical leaves offered? What other benefits I can expect? NB: You probably won't need to ask any of these questions of the HR person (because they're usually a bubbly, outgoing, cram-every-piece-of-possible-paper-in-your-hand kind of person) unless you have no meeting with a human resources person. In that case, ask these questions of the chairperson of your department.
School B) School B invites you for a job interview in a far away city sot that you must take a plane to get there. They promise to reimburse plane far but "could you possibly pick up the shuttle to the airport?" You do so and arrive at the hotel with no one to greet you and an entire evening and morning to while away (because the interview doesn't start till noon....) The interview itself is short: it consists of three hours with a hiring committee and a couple hours meeting with students. You do not meet with the president, provost, or human resources person and when you ask standard questions like "What is the average salary?" they reply (rather abruptly) that you can't get that information until you've been offered a position.
What do we know about this school from reading between the lines?
1. It may have some financial difficulties, evidenced by the fact that they've not really been hosting you beyond the barest requirements and this is really quite a short on campus interview for a tenure track line. (If it were a temporary or adjuncting position, this is more standard.) You should therefore wonder if there will be leaves available at all, or whether you'll have to ration copies or other office supplies. You should also wonder if you'll be overworked: will your contract require more of you than salary or time allow? Will you be viewed as mostly a working person with no outside life?
2. This kind of interview should make you wonder what faculty collaboration is really like. Is your department kind of a pariah at this school? The lack of access to human resource personnel or to faculty in other departments should make you wonder, in a negative way.
3. They're not thinking about you and your needs. They're not giving you enough information to make an informed decision about the school. Will you therefore be seen as a number, as insignificant? Too hard to tell.
If School B ends up being your only offer, you will want to consider carefully how to negotiate your contract to make this as liveable a situation as possible for you in the long term. This is the kind of school you may be plotting to get as far away from as soon as possible, but if that proves difficult, the initial contract negotiations will be imperative.
School C) School C invites you for a fully paid on campus interview much like School A's. One of the key differences that is immediately apparent, though, is that School C asks for an on campus interview in an email - to ALL the other candidates as well.
When you arrive on campus, you are met by wonderful people - who immediately apologize for the town, the school and the people. In the course of the interview questions you ask, you discover that WHILE having a 4-4 course load, the school also expects the person in this new position to do plenty of research ("to lead us toward R1 status) and to run a new "institute" on campus that is newly funded by an anonymous donor.
What do we know about this school?
1) It is characterized by unprofessionalism. This is not necessarily a deal breaker, but you might wonder whether the way things get done at this school is by round about means, via old boy networks.
2) There is a lack of good administration at this school. The administration is clueless about faculty needs and abilities. They are expecting quite a lot out of their candidate, and especially one that they know comes straight from graduate school. This is going to be information that comes in especially handily when it comes to negotiating a contract.
3) We might also wonder about financial difficulties, instead of or in addition to administrative problems. While this institution is not clearly in dire straits, the fact that they're already piling on duties (4-4 course load along with running an institute) suggests that they do not have the ability to hire the personnel they need. You'll probably be overworked at this school.
To Sum it Up....
The questions asked of you are similar to the ones from the first round, though you will have time to deepen your answers. Where your real work is, however, is in the questions you ask and the things you intuit. This will help you immeasurably in determining what to do when it comes time for contract negotiations should they offer you a job.
Special for Women and Moms:
1. I have gotten mixed advice over the years on whether to ask directly about maternity leave, or whether to just be vague: "What is your leave policy?" These days, I would probably ask directly, but depending on the situation, might ask it more of women faculty themselves. Alternatively, do an internet search to see if you can find a copy of the maternity leave policy and if you can't find one, be prepared to ask for that in contract negotiations.
2. If the hiring committee doesn't arrange a meeting with faculty women for you, you might request a coffee with someone if there's down time at all. (There usually isn't down time in these things, but if they ask you what you want, you might think about this.) Such a meeting is a good time to ask questions about women to men ratio, whether they feel like they're "always" being asked to be on committees because they're women (an important clue to how overworked you may or may not feel) and whether the campus is mom-friendly.
3. What if you're pregnant? I think the same applies as in the first round interviews. If you're past the time you can travel, I'm not sure what you might do. There is always an option for virtual conferencing. Anyone out there had the experience of being pregnant while on campus?
4. What if you're breastfeeding? Ah, well, I have a story about this. Having given birth to a premature baby who had JUST transitioned to breastfeeding from bottle feeding, I did not think I could leave my baby at home during a two day interview. So I discussed it with the hiring committee chairperson and opted to bring the baby, PLUS my husband (at my expense) so that he could keep an eye on her. I also petitioned for time to pump/breastfeed in between interview activities, which is very important. (See here for a totally different story about breastfeeding and the on campus interview.) The fact of my baby and her needs made me more direct at this point than I would have been at other times in the interview process, but this is partly to point out how distinctive the on campus round really is. At this point, they really want to get to know you better, so you have a bit more leeway, PERHAPS
I think that you have think about the situation as a whole - recognize that having family there at the interview is not ideal by a long shot, but it MAY be necessary at points. Most of the time, though, I'd not bring the family and ask about "down time" on the schedule - then use that time to pump.
Beginning a search Networking First Interview Contract Rejections
A call for an on campus interview requires a bit of a mental shift in thinking. It is now about a 1 in 3 chance that this could be your future employer, so for the on campus interview consider that you're checking THEM out just as much as they're continuing to check you out. I understand that you will feel like you've got to take the job if offered because it's THE option you have but you at least need to make sure that it's a place you can make work somehow, even if it's not quite the location/job type (more teaching over research or vice versa) you're looking for.
Actually, location and job type are much easier to deal with than some other things you might encounter....
Consider the Following Examples:
School A) School A invites you for a 2 day job interview and promises to reimburse travel. The chairperson of the hiring committee also tells you you'll be receiving a packet of helpful information in the mail. Your on campus interview consists of a teaching presentation before an actual class and a research presentation, and the chairperson asks you to prepare your teaching presentation based on the readings the students are doing. The research presentation will be done before a variety of faculty members and is to be on your current research.
When you arrive at school A, you are immediately greeted by the chairperson and given the full schedule. There is someone available to walk you to and from each place you must visit, and your schedule includes meetings with the president, the dean, and a representative from human resources. You will also meet with students at a variety of times. On all of the nights you will be there, the department is providing meals. One dinner is with junior faculty, and one of the lunches is with a group of women faculty so that you can ask questions particular to these groups of people. In some cases, you may even be given "housing" or "town" tours so you can get a sense of the kind of living options in the area.
This is the ideal on-campus interview (And I am happy to say, really is the norm. The vast majority of on campus interviews I've had were like this....). This is a school that knows you're checking them out as much as they're checking you out, and they're giving you every opportunity to find out as much as you can about them. One of the big reasons is that they don't want to have to do another job search for your position any time soon.
So in preparation for all of this, you need to be sure you have questions set up for each available constituency you'll meet. (You will, also, always be fielding the same questions you had at your first round interview about teaching, research and how you see yourself fitting into institutional aims):
President/Provost: Where do you see the institution in five years? How does the department of ________ fit in to this institution's aims? What are some of the goals you have in mind for the humanities/social sciences/sciences division of the school? (For the dean specifically: What are the tenure procedures?)
Chairperson of the Department (May or may not be the same as the chairperson of the hiring committee): What will I be expected to teach and how often? (Very Very Important)... Will I be able to teach a course occasionally that relates to my research? What are some of the department's goals? What are the procedures for getting tenure?Are there opportunities for faculty to meet and share research? How often are there department meetings? Are there opportunities for interdepartmental collaboration? Is this a new tenure line or am I replacing someone?
Senior Faculty: What are the students like? What kind of direction do you see/do you want to see the department take? What do you like about working at this institution?
Junior Faculty (who will have been at the school 6 years or less) : How have you liked working here? What are the students like? What are the housing options here? What kinds of activities do people do here? (If in a small town, you might ask if people live in the nearest large city and commute, or if they travel there quite a bit....) Do you have any advice for settling in?
Undergraduate students: What do you like about the department? What led you to come to this school? What do you like studying?
Human Resources: (NB: Before going to your on campus interview, check out the average salary of your institution for your department and rank at the helpful AAUP website...) What is the process for requesting a leave here? (Note the singular, non-specific leave: this covers all kinds of leaves, including family leave, short term and long term disability leave, as well as personal leave and sabbatical leave) How often are sabbatical leaves offered? What other benefits I can expect? NB: You probably won't need to ask any of these questions of the HR person (because they're usually a bubbly, outgoing, cram-every-piece-of-possible-paper-in-your-hand kind of person) unless you have no meeting with a human resources person. In that case, ask these questions of the chairperson of your department.
School B) School B invites you for a job interview in a far away city sot that you must take a plane to get there. They promise to reimburse plane far but "could you possibly pick up the shuttle to the airport?" You do so and arrive at the hotel with no one to greet you and an entire evening and morning to while away (because the interview doesn't start till noon....) The interview itself is short: it consists of three hours with a hiring committee and a couple hours meeting with students. You do not meet with the president, provost, or human resources person and when you ask standard questions like "What is the average salary?" they reply (rather abruptly) that you can't get that information until you've been offered a position.
What do we know about this school from reading between the lines?
1. It may have some financial difficulties, evidenced by the fact that they've not really been hosting you beyond the barest requirements and this is really quite a short on campus interview for a tenure track line. (If it were a temporary or adjuncting position, this is more standard.) You should therefore wonder if there will be leaves available at all, or whether you'll have to ration copies or other office supplies. You should also wonder if you'll be overworked: will your contract require more of you than salary or time allow? Will you be viewed as mostly a working person with no outside life?
2. This kind of interview should make you wonder what faculty collaboration is really like. Is your department kind of a pariah at this school? The lack of access to human resource personnel or to faculty in other departments should make you wonder, in a negative way.
3. They're not thinking about you and your needs. They're not giving you enough information to make an informed decision about the school. Will you therefore be seen as a number, as insignificant? Too hard to tell.
If School B ends up being your only offer, you will want to consider carefully how to negotiate your contract to make this as liveable a situation as possible for you in the long term. This is the kind of school you may be plotting to get as far away from as soon as possible, but if that proves difficult, the initial contract negotiations will be imperative.
School C) School C invites you for a fully paid on campus interview much like School A's. One of the key differences that is immediately apparent, though, is that School C asks for an on campus interview in an email - to ALL the other candidates as well.
When you arrive on campus, you are met by wonderful people - who immediately apologize for the town, the school and the people. In the course of the interview questions you ask, you discover that WHILE having a 4-4 course load, the school also expects the person in this new position to do plenty of research ("to lead us toward R1 status) and to run a new "institute" on campus that is newly funded by an anonymous donor.
What do we know about this school?
1) It is characterized by unprofessionalism. This is not necessarily a deal breaker, but you might wonder whether the way things get done at this school is by round about means, via old boy networks.
2) There is a lack of good administration at this school. The administration is clueless about faculty needs and abilities. They are expecting quite a lot out of their candidate, and especially one that they know comes straight from graduate school. This is going to be information that comes in especially handily when it comes to negotiating a contract.
3) We might also wonder about financial difficulties, instead of or in addition to administrative problems. While this institution is not clearly in dire straits, the fact that they're already piling on duties (4-4 course load along with running an institute) suggests that they do not have the ability to hire the personnel they need. You'll probably be overworked at this school.
To Sum it Up....
The questions asked of you are similar to the ones from the first round, though you will have time to deepen your answers. Where your real work is, however, is in the questions you ask and the things you intuit. This will help you immeasurably in determining what to do when it comes time for contract negotiations should they offer you a job.
Special for Women and Moms:
1. I have gotten mixed advice over the years on whether to ask directly about maternity leave, or whether to just be vague: "What is your leave policy?" These days, I would probably ask directly, but depending on the situation, might ask it more of women faculty themselves. Alternatively, do an internet search to see if you can find a copy of the maternity leave policy and if you can't find one, be prepared to ask for that in contract negotiations.
2. If the hiring committee doesn't arrange a meeting with faculty women for you, you might request a coffee with someone if there's down time at all. (There usually isn't down time in these things, but if they ask you what you want, you might think about this.) Such a meeting is a good time to ask questions about women to men ratio, whether they feel like they're "always" being asked to be on committees because they're women (an important clue to how overworked you may or may not feel) and whether the campus is mom-friendly.
3. What if you're pregnant? I think the same applies as in the first round interviews. If you're past the time you can travel, I'm not sure what you might do. There is always an option for virtual conferencing. Anyone out there had the experience of being pregnant while on campus?
4. What if you're breastfeeding? Ah, well, I have a story about this. Having given birth to a premature baby who had JUST transitioned to breastfeeding from bottle feeding, I did not think I could leave my baby at home during a two day interview. So I discussed it with the hiring committee chairperson and opted to bring the baby, PLUS my husband (at my expense) so that he could keep an eye on her. I also petitioned for time to pump/breastfeed in between interview activities, which is very important. (See here for a totally different story about breastfeeding and the on campus interview.) The fact of my baby and her needs made me more direct at this point than I would have been at other times in the interview process, but this is partly to point out how distinctive the on campus round really is. At this point, they really want to get to know you better, so you have a bit more leeway, PERHAPS
I think that you have think about the situation as a whole - recognize that having family there at the interview is not ideal by a long shot, but it MAY be necessary at points. Most of the time, though, I'd not bring the family and ask about "down time" on the schedule - then use that time to pump.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Being Truthful about Being Human: or, "Having it All" Revisited
I apologize for the blog break. Last Saturday, I attended a symposium with other theologians, and I spent last week writing the paper for that symposium. It went well, by the way, and I really enjoyed it. It also makes me think, once again, about the whole concept of working mothers "having it all."
I took the whole family with me to the town where the symposium was - actually, THAT fact was more Philosophy PhD's choice, since he 1) wanted to make sure that I made the 3 hour trip okay by myself (which meant him coming with me); 2) wanted to get out of town; 3) was maybe ever so slightly worried about being alone with L. for a whole day (?). I'm guessing here. In any case, they all came with me.
Baby G. actually went with me to the symposium, too. Most of the time, that's a big "no-no" in academia, especially if you're presenting. At least, I haven't generally felt welcome to do that. But when I was asked to present a paper, I was already 7 months pregnant, and knew that in February there WOULD, God willing, be a baby to show for it all. I also knew that I wanted to nurse the baby and therefore knew that my being away from her for a full night plus a whole day would likely not work. (She does take a bottle here and there, convenient for quick meetings and such...but a whole day and night? Philosophy PhD responsible for the feeding and care of a 3 year old plus an infant? I'm sure he would have balked.) Frankly, I'm not sure if even she were solely a bottle-taking baby, I would have left her for that long at 2 months old. I suppose that's one of those "your mileage may vary" things, highly dependent on the parent and the baby. At 7 months pregnant, you have no idea what kind of baby you'll have nor how you'll feel. And, given that the baby could conceivably have come at any point up to January 11, when they would have induced for post-term pregnancy, the symposium could have been only a month after the baby was born. All those caveats. Despite it all, they kept their invitation open and I decided, why not? It sounded like a fun symposium, and this is one of the several reasons I went into academia - to think about topics with other theologians!
The symposium planners and people were fantastic! They welcomed the baby; one of the participants walked my baby around while I gave my paper (he totally didn't have to do that) and generally it went well, at least from my point of view. (I don't know about theirs....) But the fact is, I wouldn't have gone at all if I couldn't have brought her. It was my sine qua non.
But I want to add still further to the reflection on all this. I was one of only two women in the room, and the only woman with young children. Actually, that's rather common both in my field and in academia in general. There are a few fields that have more women than men, but for the most part, that's not the case. The men there were all family guys themselves, so quite understanding about issues with kids - but still, there's a gender thing there. I'm the only one who has breasts, to put it bluntly. Whatever my brand of feminism at other times and places (I tend to favor post-modern feminism), in situations like this, I seem most like a cultural feminist, because there IS something to their idea that women have undervalued attributes like breasts.
This is especially so in the workplace. It's one of the reasons why I am angry about this country's maternity leave policies, because the underlying view seems to be that, "Oh, OKAY. We'll hire a woman, but after she's hired, she has to pretend that she doesn't have a uterus, breasts, children to pick up from school, or anything else that leaks 'family'." (And let's not make this a those-Europeans versus these-Americans thing, since that seems to devolve into cross-ocean name-calling and discussions of who is most/least responsible when it comes to the national budget. For example, I was speaking to a friend in Uganda last week, where the national policy is three months...)
The standard of pretending one doesn't have a family belongs to a time when men could pretend that they could arrive at work and appear unconnected to family life precisely because they didn't have bodies that betray otherwise. Well, I think partly because women have been in the workplace for a while, that attitude has been changing/changed for a while too. Lots of men now proclaim themselves as family men and leave meetings to pick up kids early. Our maternity leave policy is SO nineteenth-century - and while we're at it, the lack of a paternity leave policy is SO twentieth-century.
So let's be truthful about ourselves. We are a people who work and who have families, even if we're not married with children. That doesn't mean "having it all." That's a statement about the way humans exist - and have existed for a long time. Let's break away from the false ideals from the mid- to late- nineteenth century and post-World War II about women and men and families. People have long been merchants with families, farmers with families, restaurateurs with families, etc. Work wasn't always imagined as cordoned off from one's family life. I think it is largely because we started to imagine a space called "the office" that family got pushed to the wayside - but that's too straitjacketed a way to live.
Having such a hugely separate place called "work" or "the office" is too great a luxury for us, I think. I know my detractors will say, "But children are too distracting," and actually, I agree with them. I'm a big fan of well-paid child care, but I also think there are many times when we are too quick to say that children don't belong. Like, for instance, at academic meetings where for many participants, the main things aren't the papers but getting together over beers to discuss their field. I do, in fact, judge academic meetings by how welcoming they are to children. Society of Christian Ethics: excellent. Other rarefied societies of which I am/have been a part? Not so much.
Overall, we need better work policies in terms of hours, flexibility and the like. We need to be able to be fully human, fully with families and also fully participants in the economy. To pretend that we are machines or just individual objects in space, unconnected to each other, isn't realistic or good.
Just as a related aside: while I was on partial bedrest during pregnancy, I watched the entire series of "House, M.D." (Never seen it before.) Anyone else ever notice that ALL of the characters on the show have failed marriages, no children, no spouse, even no significant other (unless married to each other)? There's an interesting underplot about work becoming family if you make it to high enough/rare enough ranks. And obviously, the "best" doctors can't be ordinary, or mingle with the ordinary - that is to say, people with families. It's kind of life marriages in Hollywood: can't associate with the plebs, because it "just won't work."
I took the whole family with me to the town where the symposium was - actually, THAT fact was more Philosophy PhD's choice, since he 1) wanted to make sure that I made the 3 hour trip okay by myself (which meant him coming with me); 2) wanted to get out of town; 3) was maybe ever so slightly worried about being alone with L. for a whole day (?). I'm guessing here. In any case, they all came with me.
Baby G. actually went with me to the symposium, too. Most of the time, that's a big "no-no" in academia, especially if you're presenting. At least, I haven't generally felt welcome to do that. But when I was asked to present a paper, I was already 7 months pregnant, and knew that in February there WOULD, God willing, be a baby to show for it all. I also knew that I wanted to nurse the baby and therefore knew that my being away from her for a full night plus a whole day would likely not work. (She does take a bottle here and there, convenient for quick meetings and such...but a whole day and night? Philosophy PhD responsible for the feeding and care of a 3 year old plus an infant? I'm sure he would have balked.) Frankly, I'm not sure if even she were solely a bottle-taking baby, I would have left her for that long at 2 months old. I suppose that's one of those "your mileage may vary" things, highly dependent on the parent and the baby. At 7 months pregnant, you have no idea what kind of baby you'll have nor how you'll feel. And, given that the baby could conceivably have come at any point up to January 11, when they would have induced for post-term pregnancy, the symposium could have been only a month after the baby was born. All those caveats. Despite it all, they kept their invitation open and I decided, why not? It sounded like a fun symposium, and this is one of the several reasons I went into academia - to think about topics with other theologians!
The symposium planners and people were fantastic! They welcomed the baby; one of the participants walked my baby around while I gave my paper (he totally didn't have to do that) and generally it went well, at least from my point of view. (I don't know about theirs....) But the fact is, I wouldn't have gone at all if I couldn't have brought her. It was my sine qua non.
But I want to add still further to the reflection on all this. I was one of only two women in the room, and the only woman with young children. Actually, that's rather common both in my field and in academia in general. There are a few fields that have more women than men, but for the most part, that's not the case. The men there were all family guys themselves, so quite understanding about issues with kids - but still, there's a gender thing there. I'm the only one who has breasts, to put it bluntly. Whatever my brand of feminism at other times and places (I tend to favor post-modern feminism), in situations like this, I seem most like a cultural feminist, because there IS something to their idea that women have undervalued attributes like breasts.
This is especially so in the workplace. It's one of the reasons why I am angry about this country's maternity leave policies, because the underlying view seems to be that, "Oh, OKAY. We'll hire a woman, but after she's hired, she has to pretend that she doesn't have a uterus, breasts, children to pick up from school, or anything else that leaks 'family'." (And let's not make this a those-Europeans versus these-Americans thing, since that seems to devolve into cross-ocean name-calling and discussions of who is most/least responsible when it comes to the national budget. For example, I was speaking to a friend in Uganda last week, where the national policy is three months...)
The standard of pretending one doesn't have a family belongs to a time when men could pretend that they could arrive at work and appear unconnected to family life precisely because they didn't have bodies that betray otherwise. Well, I think partly because women have been in the workplace for a while, that attitude has been changing/changed for a while too. Lots of men now proclaim themselves as family men and leave meetings to pick up kids early. Our maternity leave policy is SO nineteenth-century - and while we're at it, the lack of a paternity leave policy is SO twentieth-century.
So let's be truthful about ourselves. We are a people who work and who have families, even if we're not married with children. That doesn't mean "having it all." That's a statement about the way humans exist - and have existed for a long time. Let's break away from the false ideals from the mid- to late- nineteenth century and post-World War II about women and men and families. People have long been merchants with families, farmers with families, restaurateurs with families, etc. Work wasn't always imagined as cordoned off from one's family life. I think it is largely because we started to imagine a space called "the office" that family got pushed to the wayside - but that's too straitjacketed a way to live.
Having such a hugely separate place called "work" or "the office" is too great a luxury for us, I think. I know my detractors will say, "But children are too distracting," and actually, I agree with them. I'm a big fan of well-paid child care, but I also think there are many times when we are too quick to say that children don't belong. Like, for instance, at academic meetings where for many participants, the main things aren't the papers but getting together over beers to discuss their field. I do, in fact, judge academic meetings by how welcoming they are to children. Society of Christian Ethics: excellent. Other rarefied societies of which I am/have been a part? Not so much.
Overall, we need better work policies in terms of hours, flexibility and the like. We need to be able to be fully human, fully with families and also fully participants in the economy. To pretend that we are machines or just individual objects in space, unconnected to each other, isn't realistic or good.
Just as a related aside: while I was on partial bedrest during pregnancy, I watched the entire series of "House, M.D." (Never seen it before.) Anyone else ever notice that ALL of the characters on the show have failed marriages, no children, no spouse, even no significant other (unless married to each other)? There's an interesting underplot about work becoming family if you make it to high enough/rare enough ranks. And obviously, the "best" doctors can't be ordinary, or mingle with the ordinary - that is to say, people with families. It's kind of life marriages in Hollywood: can't associate with the plebs, because it "just won't work."
Thursday, January 13, 2011
How to "leave" gracefully? Or, maternity leave - how DO women do it?
I continue to be somewhat amazed by how blurry the idea of "leave" is - I don't know that I'm really "leaving" except that I don't have official teaching classes this semester. I know that people say the key to leaving is just to refuse to participate - easier said than done. Besides which, maternity leave is a bit different. I'm having a good time so far hanging out with the baby but I do have to go back fairly soon so it's helpful to keep up with things. Consider what I've got going during my "leave":
TEACHING
SERVICE
I do actually have a point to saying all this beyond a kind of "hey look at all the stuff I do" ego statement. Several studies have suggested that untenured women with children have a more difficult time getting tenure (the opposite is true for men, apparently!) This really interesting 2010 study suggests some of the same thing I've experienced - the never ending nature of the job affects the way one understands family once children are in the picture. While academia has the BIG advantage of being flexible, its very flexibility is also perceived as a liability for women with children. Flexibility means one has a bit more control over time during a typical 9 to 5 day; it also means that there are often required events that happen outside a typical day.
But unlike the article I've linked, I think that non-acadmics face some of the same issues that academics do. What say you, other women out there? How do you manage being on "leave" while also knowing you'll be back in a pretty short amount of time? How do you manage the mommy track issues faced by women who have careers and children?
TEACHING
- Continued issues with grades from last semester. Hope to have this one done this week if possible!Can't just drop the students who protest grades from a previous semester; can't hand this off to someone else either.
- Directed reading with master's student (meets once a week online during leave, in office once I'm back). This is from a student who originally was a master's thesis advisee, then decided to do the work in a directed reading instead. I agreed to be her thesis advisor; don't feel like/don't want to drop the directed reading now...
- Honors thesis student advising - review and grade thesis writing; agreed to this 1.5 years ago and need to honor that...
- Masters' thesis students - I have two current students - meet and revise writing as needed; agreed to do this at least a year ago; need to honor that...
- Possibly 2 more letters of recommendation, depending on whether said students decide to apply or not
- Presentation at the Symposium on The Powers (a la the books by Walter Wink; I'll be writing about him more in the coming days) - agreed to do this a while ago; could probably miss if I HAD to.
- 6 more chapters to write on The Book - 4 of which are partially written in some form, phew
- Proposal for a conference paper on children and moral formation - could sidestep this one if necessary, though that would "put me back" in terms of having research to do next year.
- NB: Actually this relates to one of the key problems pre tenured academic women find they have if they take maternity leave. Their research goes way down, and that's because a lot of academic conferences/publications/etc. require the foresight of a year or two of advance planning. That's why insitutions with good policies stop the tenure clock, to allow women to jump back in to things after they've returned and "make up" some of the "lost" time. (I'm a bit loathe to call spending time healing from pregnancy and labor, and raising a newborn "lost" though)
- Continued work on a collective theology blog in progress for the past year.
SERVICE
- Department chair seach, involving attending the public and departmental presentations. I COULD argue to sidestep this one, actually, but that's probably not a good idea all in all.
- Assistant professor search - same as above, but this one I may actually sidestep; depends how baby is.
- University wide committee I'm on - need to continue to participate in once-a-month meetings even through maternity leave because of the topic and its relationship to other things I do at the uni.
I do actually have a point to saying all this beyond a kind of "hey look at all the stuff I do" ego statement. Several studies have suggested that untenured women with children have a more difficult time getting tenure (the opposite is true for men, apparently!) This really interesting 2010 study suggests some of the same thing I've experienced - the never ending nature of the job affects the way one understands family once children are in the picture. While academia has the BIG advantage of being flexible, its very flexibility is also perceived as a liability for women with children. Flexibility means one has a bit more control over time during a typical 9 to 5 day; it also means that there are often required events that happen outside a typical day.
But unlike the article I've linked, I think that non-acadmics face some of the same issues that academics do. What say you, other women out there? How do you manage being on "leave" while also knowing you'll be back in a pretty short amount of time? How do you manage the mommy track issues faced by women who have careers and children?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
How to Write Heavy Blog Posts
I haven't updated in a few days because I've been thinking about a pretty heavy topic that is in the news these days: state legislatures wanting to curtail higher education. Which in turn leads to curtailing of humanities, which in turn leads to less creative, less flexible, even dare I say, less ethical minds. A mind trained in humanities as well as engineering is a mind willing to take some risks and be wrong some times. A mind trained under our "Teach to the Test" policies that we have in secondary education, and which are now moving to higher education in the form of "assessment" is able to see the extent of the law but not able to think about possibilities.
(I've been thinking about all this while on maternity leave, by the way, because I know that my maternity leave is great compared to most women's in America. And I think to myself, why should that be the case? Most women, most families, most children should have what I have. Instead of academics having to be defensive toward state legislatures, I think the opposite should be happening. But instead we seem to be collectively trying to take academia down the road we've taken business in the last two decades and make them into star production factories but not places where work OR quality of life are valued highly. If we thought work mattered, we'd take pride in it, rather than considering it a drudgery. Likewise, if we really thought families and friends mattered, we'd value leaves that help us be better families and friends. I'm often amazed when I'm talking to people who did factory work or construction work in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They had pride in that work and others saw it as important too. My grandfather was a plumber and also a very influential man in his community. I don't think he'd have the same kind of respect today. He also worked hard - but he had more time off then that Americans do now. Not sure the production push of the 1980s was really a benefit...)
In all the writing about why America seems to be a falling star in politics and economics, let us consider that one of the reasons might be the moral formation of our students, or lack thereof. Because teaching to the test is moral formation whether we recognize it as such or not - but I'm not sure it's morally forming the kinds of attitudes we want to see in our students. I think it DID, on the other hand, bear some of the responsibility for forming a business culture that just barely stayed to the right side of the law and saw little or no purpose in a morality that might be beyond law (And I would add, this is a culture my business ethics students all wanted to be part of and so made themselves conform to).
That kind of culture has not really failed, despite what pundits say. I think we see it all around us, in both political and economic sectors. It continues to be a problem, and we educators continue to form students in it. Until we can think of education, and humanities, in ways that go beyond showing legislators the "bottom line" and "evidence (generally via tests)" that students learn something in my classes I think it won't get better.
My reasoning is based on something Jesus said: "By their fruits you will know them." My students' fruit lately has been far less creative - and less willing to be wrong for once - than before. My business ethics students speak of wanting to make money as fast as possible so that they can get to live what they think is quality of life - buying all the latest tech gadgets and playing with them. So rather than complain that "America" seems to be losing influence, let us think in terms of the fruit we see in our students and younger business colleagues.
Anyway. I've been working on a post (not this one) these past few days about what can be learned from academia when it comes to work and state legislatures, but it's made me rather "rant-y" and incoherent kind of like what you see above. Some day when I like those drafts, maybe I'll post them. For now I'm just submitting this humble post.
(I've been thinking about all this while on maternity leave, by the way, because I know that my maternity leave is great compared to most women's in America. And I think to myself, why should that be the case? Most women, most families, most children should have what I have. Instead of academics having to be defensive toward state legislatures, I think the opposite should be happening. But instead we seem to be collectively trying to take academia down the road we've taken business in the last two decades and make them into star production factories but not places where work OR quality of life are valued highly. If we thought work mattered, we'd take pride in it, rather than considering it a drudgery. Likewise, if we really thought families and friends mattered, we'd value leaves that help us be better families and friends. I'm often amazed when I'm talking to people who did factory work or construction work in the 50s, 60s and 70s. They had pride in that work and others saw it as important too. My grandfather was a plumber and also a very influential man in his community. I don't think he'd have the same kind of respect today. He also worked hard - but he had more time off then that Americans do now. Not sure the production push of the 1980s was really a benefit...)
In all the writing about why America seems to be a falling star in politics and economics, let us consider that one of the reasons might be the moral formation of our students, or lack thereof. Because teaching to the test is moral formation whether we recognize it as such or not - but I'm not sure it's morally forming the kinds of attitudes we want to see in our students. I think it DID, on the other hand, bear some of the responsibility for forming a business culture that just barely stayed to the right side of the law and saw little or no purpose in a morality that might be beyond law (And I would add, this is a culture my business ethics students all wanted to be part of and so made themselves conform to).
That kind of culture has not really failed, despite what pundits say. I think we see it all around us, in both political and economic sectors. It continues to be a problem, and we educators continue to form students in it. Until we can think of education, and humanities, in ways that go beyond showing legislators the "bottom line" and "evidence (generally via tests)" that students learn something in my classes I think it won't get better.
My reasoning is based on something Jesus said: "By their fruits you will know them." My students' fruit lately has been far less creative - and less willing to be wrong for once - than before. My business ethics students speak of wanting to make money as fast as possible so that they can get to live what they think is quality of life - buying all the latest tech gadgets and playing with them. So rather than complain that "America" seems to be losing influence, let us think in terms of the fruit we see in our students and younger business colleagues.
Anyway. I've been working on a post (not this one) these past few days about what can be learned from academia when it comes to work and state legislatures, but it's made me rather "rant-y" and incoherent kind of like what you see above. Some day when I like those drafts, maybe I'll post them. For now I'm just submitting this humble post.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Ah.... maternity leave
Daughter at (new) preschool.
Husband at office.
Relatives returned home.
Today is my first real day of maternity leave, just me and the baby, at home by ourselves. I've started this blog in honor of the occasion, partly because I am a little bit unsure what I am going to DO with myself for the next couple months.
I'm really grateful that I am at an institution that sees itself as family-friendly, and has policies that accordingly match (for the most part - perhaps I'll blog about that one day). I think that babies do best with a lot of concentrated time with their parents early on, and I am breastfeeding and doing lots of attachment parenting type things that require time. I am among those who wish the US had maternity leave policies that are longer than 6 weeks (and even then only for companies with more than 50 employees, blah blah blah). For all our talk about wanting to build a family-friendly nation, we have really unfriendly child and family policies.
On the other hand, what's a full-time academic used to days of teaching, writing and committee work to do all day with - well - a non-college aged, non-talking, mostly-pooping 3 week old? I haven't been trained for this!
Careful observers will, of course, note that I have another daughter, now in preschool, and may well ask what's different this time around? Truthfully, it's the fact that I HAVE done this before that scares me. I remember having days of feeling quite empty and purposeless last time around, too. One friend of mine tried to get me on the Doman (teach your baby to read at 6 months!) method of working with babies, on the faulty assumption that this would somehow occupy my time with my first. But making and reading handmade red letter cards with large words on them were not going to fill up the vacuum that had previously been filled by interesting colleagues, chats in the lounge, and students who ask off-the-wall questions.
Being a stay at home mom, even temporarily, is really, really tough I found. So I'm a little scared this time around, but still think it's important to be here.
So, I have two months of maternity leave (that's all the short term disability I have accrued at my current institution). When I "go back" in March I'll be doing modified duties so that I can get paid at my current level (i.e. no teaching, because one can't really begin teaching in mid-semester, but a lot of research and service). I'll also be bringing my baby when I go back in March because the modified duties are supposed to be such that I won't need to be at the office much. Heh heh. We'll see how that goes, then.
Until then, you may well wonder whether I REALLY am on maternity leave, because I have the following things I need to work on:
1. Edited paper I presented at a conference last March, due mid to late January for the journal publishing the proceedings of the conference.
2. Mini regional conference in mid February, where I am an invited lecturer. Guess how much I have actually written of that paper?
3. The Book. 7 chapters due by October 1st of this year (eek). Guess how much of the book I have actually written? (Fear for me a little less on this one than on #2 - I have actually written a couple of chapters...)
I guess let's jump into things, and see how far I can get nursing while typing one-handed ;-)
Husband at office.
Relatives returned home.
Today is my first real day of maternity leave, just me and the baby, at home by ourselves. I've started this blog in honor of the occasion, partly because I am a little bit unsure what I am going to DO with myself for the next couple months.
I'm really grateful that I am at an institution that sees itself as family-friendly, and has policies that accordingly match (for the most part - perhaps I'll blog about that one day). I think that babies do best with a lot of concentrated time with their parents early on, and I am breastfeeding and doing lots of attachment parenting type things that require time. I am among those who wish the US had maternity leave policies that are longer than 6 weeks (and even then only for companies with more than 50 employees, blah blah blah). For all our talk about wanting to build a family-friendly nation, we have really unfriendly child and family policies.
On the other hand, what's a full-time academic used to days of teaching, writing and committee work to do all day with - well - a non-college aged, non-talking, mostly-pooping 3 week old? I haven't been trained for this!
Careful observers will, of course, note that I have another daughter, now in preschool, and may well ask what's different this time around? Truthfully, it's the fact that I HAVE done this before that scares me. I remember having days of feeling quite empty and purposeless last time around, too. One friend of mine tried to get me on the Doman (teach your baby to read at 6 months!) method of working with babies, on the faulty assumption that this would somehow occupy my time with my first. But making and reading handmade red letter cards with large words on them were not going to fill up the vacuum that had previously been filled by interesting colleagues, chats in the lounge, and students who ask off-the-wall questions.
Being a stay at home mom, even temporarily, is really, really tough I found. So I'm a little scared this time around, but still think it's important to be here.
So, I have two months of maternity leave (that's all the short term disability I have accrued at my current institution). When I "go back" in March I'll be doing modified duties so that I can get paid at my current level (i.e. no teaching, because one can't really begin teaching in mid-semester, but a lot of research and service). I'll also be bringing my baby when I go back in March because the modified duties are supposed to be such that I won't need to be at the office much. Heh heh. We'll see how that goes, then.
Until then, you may well wonder whether I REALLY am on maternity leave, because I have the following things I need to work on:
1. Edited paper I presented at a conference last March, due mid to late January for the journal publishing the proceedings of the conference.
2. Mini regional conference in mid February, where I am an invited lecturer. Guess how much I have actually written of that paper?
3. The Book. 7 chapters due by October 1st of this year (eek). Guess how much of the book I have actually written? (Fear for me a little less on this one than on #2 - I have actually written a couple of chapters...)
I guess let's jump into things, and see how far I can get nursing while typing one-handed ;-)
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