Contents
Introduction: Why We Decided to Write this Book and Who We Are
Anyway
Chapter 1: A Success Story Told with the Hindsight of 20/20
Vision
Chapter 2: The Nefarious Nine or the Not-So-Pretty Truth about
Motherhood and Academia
Chapter 3: Know Thyself Part I -Deciding to Become an Academic
Chapter 4: Know Thyself Part II -Deciding How Many Children to Have
and When To Have Them
Chapter 5: The Last Year of Graduate School: Heading for the Job
Market and Choosing the Institution that is Right for You
Chapter 6: On the Tenure Track Part I - Scholarship and
Networking
Chapter 7: On the Tenure Track Part II - Teaching, Service, and
Your Family
Chapter 8: The Immediate Post-Tenure Years
Chapter 9: Coming up for Full Professor
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Different Types of Institutions
Appendix 2: The Other Perspective: Words from our Children
Suggested Reading
Rachel Connelly is the Bion R. Cram Professor of
Economics at Bowdoin College and the mother of four children. An
economist specializing in labor and economic demography, she has
spent her research time, investigating the intersections between
work and family life, her teaching time inspiring generations of
Bowdoin students, and her home time reveling in child-centric
chaos.
Kristen Ghodsee is the John S. Osterwies Associate Professor
of Gender and Women's Studies at Bowdoin College and was a single
mother during the tenure process. She has received numerous honors
for her work, including grants from Fulbright, and the National
Science Foundation, as well as residential fellowships at Harvard
University and the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
Two Bowdoin College professors address the challenges of pursuing
an academic career while raising children, offering counsel and
advice to women seeking to combine 'the life of the mind with the
joys of motherhood.' Connelly, the mother of four sons, is an
economist whose international research addresses intersections
between work and family life; Ghodsee is an expert in gender and
women's studies who received Fulbright and National Science
Foundation grants. Their individual experiences inform the book,
which provides not only a step-by-step program from graduate
studies to tenure but also a 'what to expect when you're expecting'
and mothering while chiseling out a profile inside ivied halls.
Connelly and Ghodsee tell tough truths—academics is a hard and
demanding career for anyone, and most difficult for women with
children—but they recommend outsourcing whatever does not
contribute directly to your job; availing yourself of good full- or
part-time child care; finding an institution with fair work-family
policies; attending conferences, networking, and coauthoring
publications; saying 'no' to nonessential work; relocating as
opportunities arise; and staying hyper vigilant about time
management. A well-presented guidebook for academics.
*Publishers Weekly*
Bowdoin faculty members Connelly and Ghodsee are mothers who've
struggled with the challenges of research, teaching, publishing,
and caring for children in defiance of the conventional wisdom that
women in academia have to choose between family and career. They
devote an entire chapter to debunking the myths that discourage
many women from pursuing tenure during their most fertile
productive years. Drawing on their experiences and on surveys of
and interviews with a variety of women in academia, they first
review the decision to have an academic career and the decision to
have children, including how many and when to have them. They
proceed with a detailed chronology of the tenure track, a
comprehensive guide, and unwavering encouragement. They are frank
about sacrifices and challenges encountered during graduate study
and the PhD dissertation, and they detail the hurdles presented by
low salaries, undesirable work locations, and long working hours.
But they also note the rewards of both academic life and
motherhood. Women interested in careers in academia should
appreciate this helpful, encouraging resource.
*Booklist*
In Professor Mommy, Rachel Connelly and Kristen Ghodsee present a
thorough set of questions for women to consider and strategies to
utilize in order to make informed decisions about pursuing both an
academic career and family life. ... Professor Mommy is a practical
guide written for women who are considering or currently combining
family life and the pursuit of tenure. The authors recognize that
tenure-track fathers have challenges when they are involved parents
of small children, but Connelly and Ghodsee intentionally speak to
the particular concerns and situations that mothers face. ...
Professor Mommy has many helpful insider tips for any junior
faculty member or graduate student who has not had these
conversations with a trusted (mommy) mentor. ...[F]or those of us
who desire to seek tenure within the existing system, having access
to the information in Professor Mommy is invaluable. The book does
what it sets out to do, providing information and options for women
to make decisions that will position them as best as possible for
tenure and promotion within the existing system. Recognizing that
the assimilationist approach will not work for every woman, it
provides guidance for the many.
*Feminist Collections: A Quarterly Of Women's Studies
Resources*
With this new how-to guide for mothers in academia, Rachel Connelly
and Kristen Ghodsee invite women academics to muster their courage
and proceed despite the potential pitfalls. Their unblinking
analysis of the risks and rewards of combining academic life with
motherhood is a welcome and unique addition to the literature on
the topic. . . . Connelly and Ghodsee draw from published
literature, surveys and interviews of colleagues, and their
combined experience to illustrate that it is indeed possible to
succeed as both a mother and a faculty member. They offer concrete
advice for each stage of the climb from PhD student to full
professor, from caretaker of infants to parent of teenage children,
encouraging readers to proceed realistically and know that they can
achieve their work and life goals if they are committed to the
task. The authors are, as they admit, “brutally honest” about the
difficult road many “professor mommies” face (8), and they give
little credence to the idea that the academy will become more
family-friendly in the near future (suggesting that women wait to
advocate for systemic change until they have earned the protection
of tenure). But this hard-nosed realism is a necessary anchor for
their enthusiasm, and the book is an essential resource for anyone
considering the life of a “professor mommy."
*On Campus With Women*
A smart, readable description of the hurdles facing women who have
children while in graduate school or on the tenure track. And while
the book does not minimize the difficulties of being both mommy and
professor, it is directed at women who want to "opt in"....This is
an excellent book; the chapter “On Deciding to Become an Academic”
is a must-read for students considering graduate school, as is
their chapter on debunking the popular myths of mothering in
academia (“myth #1: an academic job will allow you to spend more
time with your kids”). They are frank about the trade-offs of being
a successful academic – you won’t have a clean house, and you might
not see your child’s first step – but these are the same struggles
of a high achieving mom in any profession. Perhaps that is the
point: academia is not a haven from sexism, workaholism, or
politics. But if you want to do it anyway (and want to have more
than one child!), this book offers clear advice to achieving
success.
*Inside Higher Ed*
Two tenured Bowdoin College professors, economist Rachel Connelly
and gender and women's studies scholar Kristen Ghodsee, have thrown
out a rope to women scholars in hopes of helping them get a
foothold in the slippery slopes of academia without having to forgo
motherhood. The pair has just written book enlivened by anecdotes
and statistics that offers step-by-step guidance for women at all
stages of their families and careers to help them successfully
negotiate the 'maternal wall' in academia. Professor Mommy: Finding
Work-Family Balance in Academia (Rowman Littlefield 2011) describes
in thorny detail the personal costs that many women in academia
face, yet offers savvy, encouraging strategies for juggling the
demands of an academic career and motherhood.
*Bowdoin Campus News*
Professor Mommy addresses many concerns of professional women in
academia who desire to combine their professions with motherhood. .
. . the book is a useful resource for career and employment
counselors who see clients with similar issues. This book provides
a plethora of information and tactics that are helpful when
counseling women interested in pursuing a career in academia while
also incorporating a busy home life. . . . an overall outstanding
read. . . . Although the purpose of Professor Mommy is to serve as
a guide to young women who would like to combine life as an
academic with the joys of motherhood, the book is extremely
beneficial to counselors who assist women addressing issues of
balancing career and family in other occupational areas as
well.
*Journal of Employment Counseling*
Bringing to light the juggling mothers toiling beneath the radar,
often in the middle of the night, is precisely the goal of Rachel
Connelly’s and Kristen Ghodsee’s enlightening, amusing, and
truth-telling book, Professor Mommy: Finding Work-Family Balance in
Academia. Their book is a hopeful treatise on the success of
mothers working in universities....Part philosophical discourse,
part advice, the book is divided into nine conversational
chapters—easy for the working mother to peruse between meetings or
read straight through in one sitting. . . . The book is well worth
the time, not only for working mothers, but also for any scholar
considering a life in academia.
*The Chronicle of Higher Education*
Don't believe the myths—you can conquer the academy while raising
children. It isn't easy, but few worthwhile things in life are.
Connelly and Ghodsee show, step by step, how smart women win at
work and win at home by protecting their time and focusing on what
matters most (hint: it's not grading papers or ironing
shirts!).
*Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You
Think*
Do read this 'can do' book for mothers who want to pursue an
academic career! Yes, you can succeed and this book guides you
through every step and pitfall—from choosing the type of
institution that is for you to coming up for full professor. It
doesn't shy away from the very real obstacles, like exhaustion
during the early child-raising years, but offers alternative
strategies for climbing the ladder. The sound advice is aimed at
mothers—but it could be the handbook for any Ph.D. who is deciding
on an academic career. I will recommend it to all my graduate
students.
*Mary Ann Mason, professor and co-director of the Center, Economics
& Family Security at the University of California, Berkeley, School
of Law; a*
Rachel Connelly and Kristen Ghodsee have written a book that is not
just a must-read for anyone contemplating the intricate and as-yet
imperfect balance of academic life and family life, but for anyone
at all interested in promoting equity in the workplace and more
importantly, in the world of ideas. Professor Mommy lays out in
stark detail the dismal record and very real statistics of the
“maternal wall,” “glass ceiling” and the steep personal costs that
women academics often face. But rather than stop there, they offer
detailed, practical and user-friendly guidance on how to set your
own priorities, draw boundaries and forge a path through this
thorny obstacle course. They show it is not easy, but it is indeed
possible to be both a successful academic and a loving parent with
a rich family life. More, Professor Mommy is a call to action: that
lasting change and that longed-for balance will come only when men
become aware of the stacked deck against women and when women
academics make the hard decision not to opt out, but to opt in,
writing, publishing, thinking, promoting their ideas, and by their
very presence, change the calcified system from within.
*Brigid Schulte, Washington Post; Pulitzer Prize co-winner*
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