Inside each of us, British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips noted, are many lives competing to be lived. In this essay, the author describes how her educational and professional goals influenced her decision to delay having children. Now, at age 40, and having achieved tenure, she wonders if she may have waited too long for the "competing life" that…

In this article, the author offers some success secrets of the stars for fitting into one's research again after the baby. The author has some experience to share, having had her first child as a high school teacher, her second as an ABD (all-but-dissertation) graduate student, and now her third as an assistant professor at a research-intensive…

Over the past three decades, the overall percentage of women receiving degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics--known collectively as the STEM disciplines--has increased dramatically. This growth tends to mask at least three other aspects of the demographics of the science and technology workforce. Unfortunately, aggregated…

This article presents an interview with Emily Toth, who writes the monthly "Ms. Mentor" academic advice column in the "Chronicle of Higher Education" and teaches in the English department at Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge. She is the author of "Ms. Mentor's Impeccable Advice for Women in Academia" (1997), "Inside Peyton Place: The Life…

This essay argues that it is time to rewrite the rhetoric of motherhood in higher education, and use American Association of University Professors (AAUP ) recommendations to help. The authors observe that although the AAUP and other groups have urged colleges and universities to strike a work-life balance, academic culture is slow to change, and…

Even though women make up nearly half of the PhD population, they are not advancing at the same rate as men to the upper ranks of the professoriate; many are dropping out of the race. Our first "Do Babies Matter?" article, published in the November-December 2002 issue of Academe, examined the effect of family formation on academic careers. It was…

Biological and tenure clocks have the unfortunate tendency to tick loudly, clearly, and at the same time. The average age at which faculty earn the PhD is thirty-four, putting the tenure decision at about age forty, just when a woman's fertility is in serious decline. As more women enter the academic profession as assistant professors, more of…

Institutions of higher education nationwide have been adopting policies to help faculty members with primary caregiving roles to attain tenure, and much research has been devoted to their effectiveness. The range of policies and programs has expanded dramatically since the 1970s. Among the options now available are family leave, elder-care…

Today, American families juggle many competing priorities: home, work, school, medical care, after-school activities, and other responsibilities required to raise a family and maintain a household. At the same time, more employers are developing policies that acknowledge the need for a healthy balance between work and home. These policies allow…

The success of faculty members in balancing their academic careers with family responsibilities is a matter of more than individual happiness: it is also a matter of addressing structural inequities and attracting the most qualified candidates to the academic profession. To make it possible for faculty members to balance work and family,…

Examines family formation and its effects on the career lives of both women and men academics from the time they receive their doctorates until 20 years later. Finds that there is a consistent and large gap in achieving tenure between women who have early babies and men who have early babies. Discusses policy implications. (EV)

Much of the dialogue about part-time faculty on the tenure track has focused on individuals who have not yet earned tenure and whose chances of obtaining it may be affected by the challenges of bearing or raising children. As a pretenure faculty member with young children, the author pursued the path of many colleagues in academia: she found…