Showing posts with label academe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label academe. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Monday, October 24, 2011
Monday, May 10, 2010
back again
Again I missed one of my posts over at IHE. Last week I blogged about my phone ringing while I was in a workshop (among other things); this week I have a little more to say about that workshop.
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Tuesday, April 27, 2010
It's over? Really?
Our semester seems to end weeks earlier than anyone else's, which always feels like a gift in April (though not so much in August, when we start weeks earlier than anyone else, too). This year I had an unusually great last day of class...
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Semester's End - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
Last week, by the way, I ruminated about rubrics and spreadsheets and what my job will look like in twenty years--and forgot to put it here. So, a two-fer!
Oh! And, I almost forgot, but the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed was named one of the top parenting blogs recently by this neat resource--I love the idea that nurse practitioners are recommending parenting blogs to their patients. Makes perfect sense. Our blog is the top one listed in "specific parenting issues."
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Semester's End - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
Last week, by the way, I ruminated about rubrics and spreadsheets and what my job will look like in twenty years--and forgot to put it here. So, a two-fer!
Oh! And, I almost forgot, but the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed was named one of the top parenting blogs recently by this neat resource--I love the idea that nurse practitioners are recommending parenting blogs to their patients. Makes perfect sense. Our blog is the top one listed in "specific parenting issues."
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Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Happy New Year in Social Media - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
Yes, Facebook is killing the blog (my blog, at least). So maybe it's just too-too something to blog about it, but I did, anyway.
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Happy New Year in Social Media - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Happy New Year in Social Media - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Now and Then - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
I was late with my blog post this week, which is ironic, considering the topic...
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Now and Then - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Now and Then - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Monday, December 14, 2009
semester's end
I haven't finished my grading yet. I haven't started the Christmas baking yet. And don't even talk to me about the Christmas shopping (this year, with shipping!). Not yet. I have, however, been thinking about my students...
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Thinking about my students - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Thinking about my students - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: End of Semester Bullets and Questions - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
I have a draft of a post about Thanksgiving lying around, but I haven't gotten to it yet--right now, I only have time for bullet points and quick questions...
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: End of Semester Bullets and Questions - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: End of Semester Bullets and Questions - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Monday, November 09, 2009
November?
If it's November it must be job season. Here's what I think about that right now:
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: November - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: November - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Monday, October 26, 2009
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Bullet Points on women in the news - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
Catching up on some recent articles on women, the women's movement, and (yet again!) mothering in the academy...
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Bullet Points on women in the news - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Bullet Points on women in the news - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Monday, October 19, 2009
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Parents' Weekend from the other side - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
As a professor, I'm rarely all that aware of Parents' Weekend on our campus. Occasionally an advisee has brought his or her parents by to say hello; sometimes I've run into a student with parents in tow and have stopped to chat. But most often I simply register the additional folks walking around the campus and then go on with my own business.
This time it was different. I was the one in tow.read the rest here: Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Parents' Weekend from the other side - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: My take on "Opting Out" - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
do mothers really have choices about "working"? I'm not so sure...
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: My take on "Opting Out" - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: My take on "Opting Out" - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Labor Day
I worked yesterday, and I enjoyed it. Really. Check it out here:
Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Labor Day - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Blog U.: Mothering at Mid-Career: Labor Day - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
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Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Goal Setting, Research Productivity, and the Associate Professor Survey
(Cross-posted from the other blog)
A friend asked me yesterday if I had goals. Not just "things I'd like to do some day," but articulated, specified goals. With a timeline.
In short, no.
All the career advice I've ever read suggests that goal-setting is an essential part of an integrated, successful career. And I do have "things I'd like to do some day," don't get me wrong. But writing down goals...well, for whatever reason, I haven't done it. One reason, I suspect, is that I'm a little uncomfortable with taking myself quite that seriously, with putting myself forward, in the way that goal-setting suggests. When I write it down here it sounds ludicrous, but there it is.
But here's the thing. I spent some time yesterday with the MLA's Associate Professor Survey, and I wonder if I'm not alone. The key finding for me, that women in private independent institutions (like my own) spend on average 9.6 years at associate professor before advancing to full, was sobering. (Especially since I'm already right at that mark, if not a little beyond it.) But even more telling was the paired statistic that in the same institutions, men are advancing on average three years more rapidly. (That's the largest gap between men's and women's advancement that the survey found.)
I wonder if women are less willing to label themselves career-focused than men are. I wonder if those women aren't articulating their goals, aren't naming them, and are therefore falling behind on them. I think in institutions like mine this could be a particularly insidious trap, as we are sought after and rewarded (up to a point) for our service and our teaching, and can make a pretty good career on them alone. So I wonder if when women like me say, "I'm too busy for my research," they really mean, "I haven't made it a priority." I wonder if they haven't made it a priority because they see that it's not really that highly valued, or because they truly prefer their teaching or service work, or because they have trouble carving out time for it at home. I am not at all ready to discount institutional and/or systemic discrimination against women, either--I know that the research work I do is, on occasion, measured and found wanting, at least in part because my field (children's literature--a female-dominated field) is not taken as seriously as, say, Renaissance literature. But such discrimination may fall into a larger pattern of discounting women's work that women themselves participate in. What would it take for us to claim our own work, our own value?
Or, on the other hand, are we choosing the saner course by pursuing more integrated lives? Sometimes that's what I think, and it does make sense. I have great autonomy in the classroom already; I do the research that interests me in the time frame that I can make work for my family, and that means an emphasis on conference papers and articles rather than on a monograph. (Psst--I prefer to read articles anyway, and suspect that they're more influential in most cases. But that's another story...maybe.) In my essay for Mama, PhD I call for us all to insist on the value of our work, to hold our senior colleagues and administrators to account when they pay lip service to teaching and service and then reward only original scholarship. I do think the work I do is valuable, but a small voice inside me also says, "you're not doing enough research." Maybe if I put some goals in writing I could measure my work against them and silence that voice. Maybe.
We think of these things when the semester ends and the research program hasn't quite ramped up again--or I do. Here's what I wrote yesterday about that survey, taking things in a slightly different direction:
Mothering at Mid-Career: The Associate Professor Survey - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
Posted using ShareThis
Note: when I went to post this, I wanted to tag it for future reference and discovered that I have never used a tag for either "research" or "scholarship" before. Hmm.
A friend asked me yesterday if I had goals. Not just "things I'd like to do some day," but articulated, specified goals. With a timeline.
In short, no.
All the career advice I've ever read suggests that goal-setting is an essential part of an integrated, successful career. And I do have "things I'd like to do some day," don't get me wrong. But writing down goals...well, for whatever reason, I haven't done it. One reason, I suspect, is that I'm a little uncomfortable with taking myself quite that seriously, with putting myself forward, in the way that goal-setting suggests. When I write it down here it sounds ludicrous, but there it is.
But here's the thing. I spent some time yesterday with the MLA's Associate Professor Survey, and I wonder if I'm not alone. The key finding for me, that women in private independent institutions (like my own) spend on average 9.6 years at associate professor before advancing to full, was sobering. (Especially since I'm already right at that mark, if not a little beyond it.) But even more telling was the paired statistic that in the same institutions, men are advancing on average three years more rapidly. (That's the largest gap between men's and women's advancement that the survey found.)
I wonder if women are less willing to label themselves career-focused than men are. I wonder if those women aren't articulating their goals, aren't naming them, and are therefore falling behind on them. I think in institutions like mine this could be a particularly insidious trap, as we are sought after and rewarded (up to a point) for our service and our teaching, and can make a pretty good career on them alone. So I wonder if when women like me say, "I'm too busy for my research," they really mean, "I haven't made it a priority." I wonder if they haven't made it a priority because they see that it's not really that highly valued, or because they truly prefer their teaching or service work, or because they have trouble carving out time for it at home. I am not at all ready to discount institutional and/or systemic discrimination against women, either--I know that the research work I do is, on occasion, measured and found wanting, at least in part because my field (children's literature--a female-dominated field) is not taken as seriously as, say, Renaissance literature. But such discrimination may fall into a larger pattern of discounting women's work that women themselves participate in. What would it take for us to claim our own work, our own value?
Or, on the other hand, are we choosing the saner course by pursuing more integrated lives? Sometimes that's what I think, and it does make sense. I have great autonomy in the classroom already; I do the research that interests me in the time frame that I can make work for my family, and that means an emphasis on conference papers and articles rather than on a monograph. (Psst--I prefer to read articles anyway, and suspect that they're more influential in most cases. But that's another story...maybe.) In my essay for Mama, PhD I call for us all to insist on the value of our work, to hold our senior colleagues and administrators to account when they pay lip service to teaching and service and then reward only original scholarship. I do think the work I do is valuable, but a small voice inside me also says, "you're not doing enough research." Maybe if I put some goals in writing I could measure my work against them and silence that voice. Maybe.
We think of these things when the semester ends and the research program hasn't quite ramped up again--or I do. Here's what I wrote yesterday about that survey, taking things in a slightly different direction:
Mothering at Mid-Career: The Associate Professor Survey - Mama PhD - Inside Higher Ed
Posted using ShareThis
Note: when I went to post this, I wanted to tag it for future reference and discovered that I have never used a tag for either "research" or "scholarship" before. Hmm.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Neglecting the blog
I've been neglecting the blog of late not only because I'm finding facebook and/or twitter filling some similar needs, but because I've been crazy busy with travel, committee work, teaching, life--same old, same old, really, but somehow it's catching up with me more this time. My last two blog posts on the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed will explain more:
Where I was and why I'm glad I went.
And this is the show I got to see at the Grand Ole Opry. A bunch of us went, and if we went thinking it was about the camp and the sequins, we stayed for the music and the heart. What a fabulous show!
The conference, by the way, was this one: an intimate gathering of children's lit scholars at the top of their game. I have pages and pages of notes, lists of books to read, people to follow up with--and the beginnings, I think, of my next academic article (on Twilight and intertextuality, if you must know). A weekend well-spent, despite the six-hour delay in the Atlanta airport on Thursday which made me miss three sets of papers. (You know it's a good conference when you lament the papers you didn't get to hear...)
And now if you'll excuse me I think I need to go get a new powercord for my laptop. This one travels so much it's starting to fray a bit and that makes me nervous.
Where I was and why I'm glad I went.
And this is the show I got to see at the Grand Ole Opry. A bunch of us went, and if we went thinking it was about the camp and the sequins, we stayed for the music and the heart. What a fabulous show!
The conference, by the way, was this one: an intimate gathering of children's lit scholars at the top of their game. I have pages and pages of notes, lists of books to read, people to follow up with--and the beginnings, I think, of my next academic article (on Twilight and intertextuality, if you must know). A weekend well-spent, despite the six-hour delay in the Atlanta airport on Thursday which made me miss three sets of papers. (You know it's a good conference when you lament the papers you didn't get to hear...)
And now if you'll excuse me I think I need to go get a new powercord for my laptop. This one travels so much it's starting to fray a bit and that makes me nervous.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Spring Break by the numbers, sort of
30-80: range, in Farenheit, of temperatures experienced during the week.
48: cookies baked.
47: papers I should have read and marked during the week.
24: papers I did read and mark during the week.
22: muffins baked
10: pages of my own paper drafted.
9: checked out from the library to work on my paper.
2: books I went to the library to get for my paper.
2: maintenance-type appointments accomplished during the week.
2: essays copy-edited.
2: movies seen (Slum-Dog Millionaire, Pan's Labyrinth).
2: novels read (Inkdeath, House of Many Ways)
2: hours I was in the office this morning, break over, before I noticed that the cherry tree outside my window is starting to bloom again.
48: cookies baked.
47: papers I should have read and marked during the week.
24: papers I did read and mark during the week.
22: muffins baked
10: pages of my own paper drafted.
9: checked out from the library to work on my paper.
2: books I went to the library to get for my paper.
2: maintenance-type appointments accomplished during the week.
2: essays copy-edited.
2: movies seen (Slum-Dog Millionaire, Pan's Labyrinth).
2: novels read (Inkdeath, House of Many Ways)
2: hours I was in the office this morning, break over, before I noticed that the cherry tree outside my window is starting to bloom again.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Mothers Movement and Mama, PhD
Here's a great conversation, among Caroline Grant, Elrena Evans, and Andrea O'Reilly, about Mama, PhD and the issues facing mother academics (and other parents, but you'll see why the focus is on mothers, I think). This is particularly pertinent to me since I've just been to (yet another) meeting about child care on campus. (No, we don't have a child care center here; yes, we are still talking about it.)
Here's a brief excerpt:
Andrea O'Reilly: I am beginning year three of a large, government-funded research project on "being a mother in the academe." I have interviewed approximately 45 women and hope to interview another 50. A central finding of my research is the pull mothers feel in trying to live up to impossible standards of perfection in both the university and in the home. As the "ideal worker," a woman has to have a book published before 35, etc. and as an ideal mother, she has to be the perfect mother, with the perfect house, perfect children… i.e., a child who reads before two and speaks two languages by age four. With the contemporary discourse of ideal motherhood, what Sharon Hays calls intensive mothering, it is impossible to be a "good" mother and "good" academic.
There's an interesting conversation about this stuff going on at 11-D as well, where I find myself taking the unusual (for me) glass-half-full position. The thing is, having given up on the "impossible standards of perfection" O'Reilly mentions above, I'm doing OK. But I do still see plenty of room for improvement.
Here's a brief excerpt:
Andrea O'Reilly: I am beginning year three of a large, government-funded research project on "being a mother in the academe." I have interviewed approximately 45 women and hope to interview another 50. A central finding of my research is the pull mothers feel in trying to live up to impossible standards of perfection in both the university and in the home. As the "ideal worker," a woman has to have a book published before 35, etc. and as an ideal mother, she has to be the perfect mother, with the perfect house, perfect children… i.e., a child who reads before two and speaks two languages by age four. With the contemporary discourse of ideal motherhood, what Sharon Hays calls intensive mothering, it is impossible to be a "good" mother and "good" academic.
There's an interesting conversation about this stuff going on at 11-D as well, where I find myself taking the unusual (for me) glass-half-full position. The thing is, having given up on the "impossible standards of perfection" O'Reilly mentions above, I'm doing OK. But I do still see plenty of room for improvement.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Not Indispensable
I'm blogging over on the Mama, PhD blog at Inside Higher Ed again today. This week I'm thinking about indispensability, and why it's a dangerous myth for both teachers and mothers to buy into.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Parenting in the News...again
Over at the Mama, PhD blog at IHE today I'm talking about Lisa Belkin's shared parenting piece in the NY Times magazine, as well as two pieces more specifically focused on academic women and academic parenting. Let me know what you think!
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